Sep 21 2009
From the 25th Hour to Eternity
Reflection on From the 25th Hour to Eternity (Georghiu) and On the Priesthood (St John Chrysostom) chapters 4, 7. (Reflection on Counsels on the Christian Priesthood (St John of Kronstadt) chapter 3 to follow when the book becomes available.)
The basic theme of these readings is to emphasize both the extreme weight of responsibility of the priesthood, especially in terms of pastoral responsibility for the souls in the care of the priest, and also the glory of the priesthood – a glory which has to be understood in specifically Christian terms as that glory shown not only in the resurrected, glorified and ascended Christ, but also in Christ reigning in glory on the cross.
Georghiu describes his priestly father in iconic terms, from his first vision of his father as an icon to his later awareness of how his father’s mode of living out his priesthood in constant service to his flock led to both the aging and breaking of his physical body along with an illuminating radiance in his glance that would seem to light up what he observed and which led to Georghiu seeing him “as bright as an icon”. Again, the glory and the sacrifice are two sides of the same coin.
Likewise in Chrysostom: in telling of the priesthood in ways which justify his attempt to flee so great an honour, he describes both the sacrifice – how the priest must risk not only his life but even his soul in taking on the pastoral care of the flock, and the glory – “bringing down, not fire [as Elijah did], but the Holy Spirit” he notes in a beautiful passage on the role of the priest in the Divine Liturgy.
Chrysostom’s expressions of the character of the priest are enough to make most follow his example and run! The priest “needs great wisdom and a thousand eyes, to examine the soul’s condition from every angle”. He needs “a heroic spirit” and must be “as pure as if he were standing in heaven itself”. The magnitude of the task excludes most men, being open only to those who “far excel all others” and are “above the rest in spiritual stature”. Who is going to claim this for himself? The need for this heroic spirit and great stature is the pastoral responsibility of the priest for his people in discernment of spiritual disease, its effects and its appropriate treatment; the ability to discern the right path between an overly rigorous approach leading to despair and an overly lenient one leading to complacency; avoiding the temptations of the world which attempt to lead the flock and the priest himself astray; and serving as a spiritual midwife who leads those who are brought to him through the pregnancy of preparation into the new birth of baptism. In the end, according to Chrysostom, the priest as ruler exceeds an earthly king, as physician exceeds an earthly doctor, and as father exceeds an earthly parent. No man can achieve this, and yet we know of great saints who have reached such a level of humility that they have been able to accept these gifts from the one Lord who is the true priest of all.
When Georghiu complains to his father that the people do not treat the priest well, and expect more of him than a human can give, his father tells him, “the priest is not human but a sacrifice of a human that is added to the sacrifice of God.” This was also the experience of St Paul: “I rejoice in my sufferings on behalf of you, and fill up the things lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, on behalf of his body, which is the Church, of which I became a minister” (see Col. 1:24-2:3). The afflictions of the older Fr Georghiu are described in detail in the poverty of his family, the 30km daily walks in the snow to serve his people, the premature aging of his almost “immaterial and fragile” body. The glory is shown in the wearing of the priestly stole, the epitrachelion – but again this glory is described in terms of the sacrifice it represents when Georghiu tells of circumstances so severe that the only epitrachelion available is a piece of rope – worn nonetheless as that priestly stole – and worn also by those priests whose priesthood served to the last earthly sacrifice in mid-twentieth-century Romania when such a piece of rope was used to hang them.
In the imitation of his master, Georghiu tells us, sociologists have observed that the faithful servant will take on characteristics of the master. Thus a faithful priest takes on characteristics of his Lord – sharing in the glory and in the sacrifice.
