The Dew

Across a clear blue sky, on a beautiful summer day, the magnificent luminary was pursuing its accustomed course. The golden crosses of the five-domed cathedral, raised to the glory of the All-Holy, God-originating Trinity, blazed in the light; its silver domes reflected the blinding radiance of the sun’s rays. The shadow showed that the tenth hour was approaching, the hour at which the Divine Liturgy customarily begins. Multitudes of people were hastening from the main road toward the peaceful monastic dwelling: the day was a Sunday, or perhaps a feast day—I no longer remember.

Beyond the wall of that monastery, on the eastern side, there lay a broad meadow. At that time it was covered with thick, tender grass and wild flowers of many kinds, which bloomed and breathed their fragrance freely in the open air. On that day a heavy dew had fallen upon it. Countless drops of it were visible on every flower, on every stalk and small leaf, and in each drop the sun was clearly reflected; each drop sent forth rays like the rays of the sun. The meadow had the appearance of a vast velvet carpet spread wide, upon whose bright, dense green a lavish hand had scattered a countless multitude of variegated precious stones, with their exquisite lustre, their play of light, their rays and radiance.

At that moment a priest-monk who was preparing to celebrate the Divine Liturgy stepped out with deep thought from the side, secluded gate of the monastery, and after taking a few steps, halted before the vast meadow.[1] His heart was still; and nature answered that stillness of heart with an inspired quiet of her own—that quiet which fills a beautiful June morning, which so favours contemplation. Before his eyes: the sun upon the azure, clear sky, and countless reflections of the sun in the countless drops of dew upon the broad meadow. His thought was losing itself in a kind of boundlessness; the mind was without thought, as though purposely prepared and attuned to receive a spiritual impression. The priest-monk gazed upon the sky, upon the sun, upon the meadow, upon the glistening drops of dew—and suddenly there opened before the eyes of the soul an explanation of the greatest of the Christian mysteries: that explanation by which the incomprehensible and inexplicable may be explained—an explanation through a living similitude, a vivid picture that lay before his eyes.

It was as though someone said to him: “Behold! — the sun reflects itself entire in each humble yet pure drop of dew: so also Christ, in each Christian Orthodox church, is wholly present and offered upon the holy table. He imparts light and life to those who receive Him—who, having communed of the Divine Light and Life, themselves become light and life: just as the drops of dew, having received the rays of the sun, themselves begin to emit rays like the rays of the sun. If the material and corruptible sun—a creature of the Creator, which cost Him, to bring into being, only a single effortless movement of His will—can reflect itself in countless drops of water all at once: why can the Creator Himself, almighty and omnipresent, not be wholly present all at once in His Most Holy Flesh and Blood, together with the Divinity united to them, in the countless temples where, by His command and institution, the all-creating, all-holy Spirit is called down upon the bread and wine for the completion of the greatest, most salvific, most incomprehensible mystery?…”

Bearing within him a deep and powerful spiritual impression, the minister of the Mystery returned to his cell. The impression remained to live in his soul. Months passed, years passed, yet it was as vivid as on the day of its first reception. Sharing its benefit and edification with his neighbour, he now, after many years, renders it in word and in writing. How poor a rendering! Pen and word are too weak for a full and exact description of spiritual visions.

Sacred vision! Sacred beholding of the mind! With what unexpected suddenness you appear in a vivid, striking picture before the mind prepared for the vision of mysteries by repentance and attentive, solitary prayer! How powerful, clear, and living is the knowledge you impart! What unassailable, incomprehensible conviction it is filled with! You are independent of men: you come to him whom you choose, or to whom you are sent. In vain would a man seek to penetrate spiritual mysteries by his own effort alone! He will be only a feeble dreamer, wandering blindly in the darkness of self-deception, himself neither feeling nor imparting any light or life. As chains clank on the hands and feet of a captive, so in the thoughts and words of the dreamer there will be heard an echo of compulsion, counterfeit, constraint, bondage, and the filth of sin. The path to spiritual vision is constant abiding in repentance, in weeping and tears over one’s sinfulness. Weeping and tears are the collyrium by which the eyes of the soul are healed (Rev. 3:18).

Sergius Hermitage, 1846.