The Pilgrim

This article is drawn from the experience of a monk engaged in the mental prayer and brought by it to the intoxication of which Saint Isaac the Syrian speaks at the end of Homily 55. Such intoxication is the action of spiritual sensation, as the same Isaac the Syrian said in Homily 38: “Spiritual understanding is the sensation of eternal life, and eternal life is divine sensation, that is, granted by the Holy Spirit”. On spiritual sensation Saint Macarius the Great speaks in Discourse 7; Ven. Symeon the New Theologian in Homily 1; the venerables Gregory of Sinai and Nilus of Sorsk call it the gracious action of prayer. The name Stranger, in the sense of the article, is used in Discourse 4 of Ven. Macarius the Great.

Where do You go? Where is Your usual dwelling? Where have You been until now? Why until now have You left me in solitude, in orphanhood, in poverty, in terrible death? Having known You, I have learned that without You my state was thus! Thus was it miserable! I stood in the vestibules of dark hell, I was cast into a deep, inescapable abyss. Do not forsake me! I cannot exist without You! If You forsake me—again I am at the gates of hell, again in the abyss, again in unbearable and inexpressible calamity.

You come! I do not see the form of Your coming; I see Your arrival, I see not with fleshly eyes—through sensation. You give me no time, no means to reflect—who are You? Unexpectedly You appear in the soul, Invisible and Incomprehensible! You appear with ineffable quietness and subtlety, together with the power and might of the Creator, for You transform the entire human being: You transform, transfigure, recreate, renew both mind and heart and body! You—the Mighty One—enter the house, bind the strong one, plunder the vessels of the house, plunder not to destruction—to salvation! And both house and vessels were once Yours; You established them, established them for Yourself, and they themselves were surrendered into grievous captivity to the robber. And they were until now—my mind, my soul, my body—under the power of a cruel master, acting under his influence. You come: they now come into Your disposal, begin to act under Your influence, holy and blessed. How shall I call You? How shall I speak of You to my brothers?

How shall I convey the name of the Stranger who has withdrawn under the shelter of my soul, under a shelter that is worn out, come to final ruin, open to the gusts of wind, to rain and snow—under a shelter fit only for beasts without reason? What did You find in my heart, which various sinful thoughts had visited in turn, entering into it without resistance, finding in it, as in a manger, as in a pig’s trough, delectable food of varied passionate sensations? It seems to me I know the name of my Guest! But, looking upon my uncleanness, I fear to speak the name. One irreverent utterance of the great and all-holy name may subject me to condemnation! How much more fearful is the very presence of the One Named! But You are present! Your boundless goodness has brought You to a foul sinner, so that the sinner, having known the dignity and calling of man, having tasted it by experience, having seen it through sensation, “how good is the Lord” (Ps. 33:9), might abandon the ways of lawlessness, abandon the beloved mire (bog—Editor) of fetid passions, might take care to acquire purity through repentance, might become Your temple and dwelling.

How shall I call the One hovering near me, hovering within me, Stranger? How shall I call the wondrous Guest who came to comfort me in my exile, to heal me of an incurable sickness, to draw me out of a dark abyss, to lead me forth into the fertile pasture-land of the Lord, to guide me in the right and holy paths, who came to remove the impenetrable veil that had spread before my eyes, concealing from me the magnificent eternity and my God? How shall I call the Teacher who proclaims to me the teaching about God, a teaching new and yet ancient, a divine teaching, not human? Shall I call the Teacher light? I do not see light, but He illumines my mind and heart, transcending all words, transcending all earthly teaching, without words, with ineffable swiftness, by some strange—thus do I express the inexpressible—touching of the mind, or action within the mind itself. Shall I call Him fire? But He does not burn; on the contrary, He irrigates pleasantly and cools. He is a certain “sound of thin stillness” (1 Sam. 19:12); but from Him, as from fire, every passion flees, every sinful thought. He utters no word, and yet utters and speaks, teaches, sings wondrously, mysteriously, with ineffable quietness, subtlety, transforming, renewing the mind and heart that listen to Him in silence, in the soul’s chamber. He has no image, no form, nothing sensible in Him. He is entirely immaterial, invisible, exceedingly subtle: suddenly, unexpectedly, with ineffable quietness He appears in the mind, in the heart, gradually pervades the entire soul, the entire body, takes possession of them, removes from them all that is sinful, arrests the action of flesh and blood, unites the scattered parts of man into one, reveals our nature whole, which has been scattered by the terrible fall, as an earthen vessel scatters from a fall. Who, seeing this restoration, does not recognize the hand of the Creator, the only One who has the power to create and to recreate?

Until now I speak only of the action, not naming Who is acting. To name Him—I am afraid! Examine me, brothers! Look carefully at what is being accomplished in me! You tell me what is being accomplished in me? You tell me who is accomplishing it? I feel, I sense within myself the presence of the Stranger. Whence He came, how He appeared in me—I do not know. Having appeared, He remains invisible, entirely incomprehensible. But He is present, because He acts within me, because He possesses me, not destroying my free will, drawing it into His will by the ineffable holiness of His will. By an invisible hand He has taken my mind, taken my heart, taken my soul, taken my body. Scarcely did they sense this hand when they came alive! There appeared in them a new sensation, a new movement—spiritual sensation and movement! I knew not these sensations and movements before, did not even know, did not suppose the existence of them. They appeared, and from their appearance sensations and movements of flesh and soul hid themselves or were constrained; they appeared as life—and vanished, as death, the former state. From the touching of this hand to my entire being, mind, heart, and body united with one another, formed something whole, unified; then plunged into God, remain there, for as long as the invisible, incomprehensible, almighty hand holds them there. What feeling then embraces me there? My entire being is embraced by a deep, mysterious silence, beyond all thought, beyond all imagination, beyond all movement of soul produced by blood; my entire being keeps sabbath and yet acts under the governance of the Holy Spirit. This governance cannot be explained in words. I remain as if intoxicated, I forget all things, I am nourished by an unknown, incorruptible food, I exist outside all that is sensible, in the realm of the immaterial, in a realm that transcends not only matter, transcends all thought, all understanding: I do not feel my very body. My eyes look and do not look, see and do not see; my ears hear and do not hear; all my members are intoxicated—and I stagger on my feet, hold myself up with my hands lest I fall, or I lie cast down upon a bed, as if in painless sickness and in weakness arising from an excess of strength. The “cup” of the Lord, the cup of the Spirit intoxicates “mightily” (Ps. 23:5). Thus do I pass days, weeks!.. And time grows short!.. A wondrous silence embracing the mind, heart, soul of those who have turned with all their might toward God and lost themselves—so to speak—in infinite movement toward the boundless, this silence is at once communion, but—without words, without any variety, without thoughts, transcending thoughts. The Stranger who accomplishes all this has also a voice and word uncommon, speaking and heard mysteriously without words and sound. I search in Scripture where it might be said of such actions, to know the wondrous Stranger, and I involuntarily stop before the words of the Saviour: “The Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but you do not know where He comes from and where He goes; so it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8). How then shall I call the action itself? It reconciles, unites man with himself, and then with God: it is impossible not to recognize in this action the breathing of divine peace, “which surpasses all understanding, guarding your heart and your thoughts in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7), granted by the Holy Spirit coming to man, renewing man. Truly! Through this action mind and heart become evangelical, become Christ’s; man sees the Gospel inscribed within himself, on the tablets of the soul, by the finger of the Spirit.

The divine Stranger departs, hides as unnoticeably as He comes and appears. But He leaves throughout my entire being the fragrance of immortality, immaterial, as He Himself is immaterial, a spiritual fragrance, life-giving, sensed by the new sensation which He has planted or awakened within me. Revived, nourished by this fragrance, I write and proclaim the word of life to my brothers. But when this fragrance is exhausted, when there arises in my soul the stench of mortal passions, then my word too—is without life, infected with stench and decay!..

If anyone, hearing from the lips of a sinner a great word about the actions of the Spirit, wavers in unbelief, is troubled by the thought that the action proclaimed is the action of demonic delusion, let him cast away that blasphemous notion. No, no! The action is not such, the properties of delusion are not such! Tell me, is it fitting for the devil, the enemy, the murderer of men, to become their healer? Is it fitting for the devil to unite into one the parts and powers of man scattered by sin, to lead them out of bondage to sin into freedom, to lead them from a state of opposition, of internal warfare, into a state of sacred peace in the Lord? Is it fitting for the devil to extract from the deep abyss of ignorance of God and bestow a living, experiential knowledge of God, which no longer needs any proofs from without? Is it fitting for the devil to preach and explain in detail the Redeemer, to preach and explain the approach to the Redeemer through repentance? Is it fitting for the devil to restore in man the fallen image, to set in order the disordered likeness? Is it fitting to grant the taste of spiritual poverty and at once of resurrection, renewal, union with God? Is it fitting for the devil to elevate to the heights of theology where man becomes as nothing, without thought, without desire, wholly plunged in wondrous silence? This silence is the exhaustion of all the powers of human existence, turned toward God, and, so to speak, vanishing before the infinite majesty of God (Job 42:6). Differently acts delusion, and differently God, the boundless Master of men, Who was and now is their Creator. He Who creates and recreates, does He not remain Creator? Hearken then, most beloved brother, hearken to how the action of delusion differs from the action of God! Delusion, when it approaches man—whether through thought or imagination, or subtle opinion, or through some appearance seen by sensible eyes, or a voice from heaven heard by sensible ears—always approaches not as an unlimited sovereign, but as a seductress, seeking agreement in man, receiving power over him from his agreement. The action of delusion, whether internal or external to man, is always action from without; man can reject it. Delusion always encounters initially a certain doubt in the heart; those who have been decisively overcome by it do not doubt it. Delusion never unites the man scattered by sin, never arrests the movements of blood, never instructs the ascetic in repentance, never diminishes him in his own eyes; on the contrary, it arouses in him imagination, sets the blood in motion, brings him a kind of tasteless, poisonous pleasure, flatters him subtly, inspires self-conceit, establishes in the soul an idol of the “self”.

Divine action is immaterial: it is not seen, not heard, not expected, is unimaginable, cannot be explained by any comparison drawn from this world; it comes, acts mysteriously. First it shows man his sin, magnifies his sin before man’s eyes, unceasingly holds terrible sin before his eyes, brings the soul into self-condemnation, reveals to it our fall, that terrible, dark, deep abyss of destruction into which our race descended through the sin of our first ancestor; then, little by little, it grants deep attention and contrition of heart during prayer. Having prepared such a vessel, suddenly, unexpectedly, immaterially it touches the scattered parts, and they are united into one. How did it touch? I cannot explain: I saw nothing, heard nothing, but I see myself changed, suddenly felt myself so from the action of the Sovereign. The Creator acted in the recreation as He acted in creation. Tell me: when the body of Adam, formed from earth, lay yet not enlivened by the soul before the Creator, could it have any notion of life, any sense of it? When it was suddenly enlivened by the soul, could it beforehand deliberate whether to accept the soul or reject it? The newly created Adam suddenly felt himself alive, thinking, willing! With the same suddenness is recreation accomplished. The Creator was and is the Sovereign—He acts sovereignly, supernaturally, beyond all thought, beyond all comprehension, infinitely subtly, spiritually altogether, immaterially.

But you still waver in doubt! You look upon me and, seeing before you such a sinner, involuntarily question: Is it truly in this sinner, in whom the action of passions is so evident and strong—is the Holy Spirit truly acting in him? A just question! And it brings me to bewilderment, to terror! I am swept away, I sin, I commit adultery with sin, I betray my God, I sell Him for the foul price of sin. And despite my constant betrayal, my treacherous, faithless behavior, He remains unchanging. Without enmity, He awaits patiently my repentance, draws me by every means to repentance, to correction. Have you heard what the Son of God says in the Gospel? “Those who are well have no need of a physician,” says He, “but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt. 9:12–13). Thus spoke the Saviour: thus also He acted. He reclined with tax collectors, with sinners, led them through conversion to faith and virtue into spiritual kinship with Abraham and the other righteous. Does the infinite goodness of the Son of God amaze and astound you? Know that the all-holy Spirit is equally good, equally thirsts for the salvation of mankind, equally gentle, without enmity, patient, multimerciful is the Spirit—one of the three equally honored Persons of the all-holy Trinity, which form, unmixed and undivided, one divine being, having one nature.

And sin itself attracts the Holy Spirit to man! Sin attracts Him—not enacted through committing, but seen in oneself, acknowledged, bewailed! The more man gazes upon his sin, the more he gives himself over to weeping for himself, the more pleasing and accessible he becomes to the Holy Spirit, Who, as a physician, approaches only those who recognize themselves as sick, and on the contrary turns away from those who are “rich” in their vain self-conceit (Lk. 1:53). Look and gaze upon your sin! Do not turn your eyes from it! Deny yourself, do not hold your “soul” “dear to yourself” (Acts 20:24). Entirely give yourself over to the sight of your sin, to weeping for it! Then, in His time, you will behold your restoration by the incomprehensible, and all the more inexplicable action of the Holy Spirit. He will come to you when you do not expect Him—will work in you when you acknowledge yourself utterly unworthy of Him!

But if there lurks in you an expectation of grace—beware: you are in a dangerous position! Such expectation testifies to hidden self-esteem, and self-esteem testifies to latent self-conceit, in which is pride. To pride easily follows, and to it easily cleaves delusion. Delusion is a turning away from Truth and from the Holy Spirit who serves Truth, a turning toward falsehood and toward demons who serve and support falsehood. Delusion exists already in self-conceit, exists in self-esteem, in the very expectation of grace. These are its initial forms, as the bud, the blossom, the germ are the initial forms of the ripe fruit. From false concepts arise false sensations. From false concepts and sensations arises self-deception. To the action of self-deception is joined the seductive action of demons. Demons reign and preside in the realm of falsehood: he who willfully submits to demons comes under their forcible influence. As darkened and deceived by the falsehood he has accepted as truth, he loses his freedom without noticing it. Such a state is the state of delusion. We enter into it, we are cast down into it through our pride and self-love. “He who loves his soul will lose it; and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it for eternal life” (Jn. 12:25). Amen.