A crossroads of the Orthodox World (4) [O răscruce a Lumii Ortodoxe]

As another summer is steadily coming to its end, and we are awaiting the Dormition of the Theotokos, today’s Great Feast – the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ – gives me the chance to send my good thoughts to dear people around the world by offering them another picture of an icon that remained in my heart.

Again, the image I’m sharing with the world is that of a paper icon taken from the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St John The Baptist in Essex. I’ve already given this icon (carried many miles throughout Europe before it got from Tolleshunt Knights to Romania) to someone dear to me, but not before taking some pictures of it.

Of all the riches of meanings that the Orthodox faith brings into our life – especially in a world so full of deceptive choices, elusive opportunities, omnipresent illusions – today is one of the most fascinating for me.

I assume I’m not wrong to call the Transfiguration one of the least understood moments in Christ’s life, while actually being one of the most important. Even many Orthodox believers couldn’t tell what that moment really meant.

For the unbeliever, this may be nothing more than one of the weirdest biblical tales. But for those of us who, in spite of our unworthiness, have been blessed to know WHO is the TRUTH, and MEANING of everything, today’s Feast brings one of the most categorical evidence about the divinity of our Saviour.

It’s amazing how St Peter, and the other two Apostles were so irresistibly attracted to the glory of Christ. All of us would, if we ever got so close understanding His true nature of God-Man. In order to ever do that, it is us the ones who need to be transfigured, so that we’d be able to percieve Him in His Glory.

If everything that happened to the Apostles after the Ressurection offered a proof that Christ is the only One worth dying for, in my humble view, St Peter’s reaction facing the Transfiguration proves that He is also the only One worth living with.

People around us couldn’t ever be truly loved unless we knew Him, and unless He (often throught His Saints) weren’t showing us what love is. Without Him, absolutely nothing would make sense, and we'd be completely purposeless without Him.

Without knowing Him, all the ‘inertial motivations’ of being alive (things done just because others of my ‘species’ did them every day) drove me crazy… Why sleep, eat, learn, work, dream, yearn, speak & listen, like & dislike, love & hate, and then… just die… WHY???

Living like most of the religiously indifferent people around me, and like the absolute majority of Brits do, I was thinking of suicide at least 20 times a day. Nothing – neither joy, nor suffering – made any sense to me.

So many things got on my nerves without Him, and it seemed that life was but a neverneding bad dream, with no beginning and no end. What was it to me if it lasted a day, a century or forever?

The bad dream stopped only when I was blessed with discovering the true purpose of human life, which is Theosis, that is personal communion with God ‘face to face’.

With Him, I’ve got the certitude that everything happens for a reason. If I were to remember how I was on the Day of Transfiguration ten years ago, all I can say now is that I am a completely different person.

I am not shouting that I am sinless, nor could I claim that spared of suffering, and – to my utmost disappontment – I can’t say I am a better person. But I am definitely – albeit in an unseen way – transfigured. Instead of being trapped in a meaningless existence, I have a destination, and Christ’s presence in my life is as crystal clear as gravitation to me.

I’m not sure whether the Earth circles around the Sun and not viceversa, I’m not sure whether the Americans really set foot on the Moon… Actually, I’m not sure of anything deemed right, correct or desirable ever since secularism took hold of history, as I mistrust the logic, reason and moral intuition that secular ethics is based upon.

I’m not sure of countless other prefabricated truths forced down our throat by the humanist society we’re living in, while I’m 100% certain that some of these truths are satanic deceits like global warming hysteria, overpopulation, inborn homosexuality etc.

Nevertheless, what I am surest of in this world is that everything about or Lord Jesus Christ is just as He told us, and His only One Church keeps telling us. How I wish that more and more of the certainly unhappy people around me wouldn’t refuse refuse their curiosity about Christ, the only One worth being curious about!

There’s no doubt for me that, one day, we shall all see the One Who the Apostles saw on Mount Tabor almost 2,000 years ago. May we, for the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, share the enchantment of St Peter, therefore have the proper wedding garment on us, and not be clad in the darkness brought upon us by having led a meanigless life away from Him!

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]