Thoughts

(Chryssavgis: Soul Mending, pp35-48; Fr Arseny pp30-96)

Again the depth of weakness and height of glory of the priesthood are evident in these readings: from the weakness of a freezing cell, Fr Arseny enjoys the glory of serving with angels; from the weakness of death, he enjoys the glory of serving with other saints in a heavenly Liturgy.

It is important to note that in these two events, the two points of greatest weakness for Fr Arseny are transformed by God into the two experiences of greatest glory. Chryssavgis notes that the idea of the priest being “aware of his own personal weakness as being the very occasion of divine strength through him deepens and broadens the notion of the authority of ministry as service (diakonia)” (p37). Indeed for Fr Arseny, living in a place where his priestly dignity and authority has been totally stripped from him, it is apparent that the authority he comes to hold through service grows precisely out of his weakness. In such a place, where most people were desperate to hold on to what little they could of themselves and for themselves, a career criminal said to Fr Arseny, “you do not live for yourself, but for others” (p61) and submitted to his priestly dignity in a life confession.

“God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise” (1 Cor 1:23, as quoted by Chryssavgis p35) and all God’s priests must accept that they are some of those foolish things. The foolish ‘things’ should not be ashamed of their foolishness: it is the wise who are put to shame by the foolishness. If our shame in our foolishness causes us to cover our weakness, it becomes a block to our weakness being used to manifest divine strength (cf Chryssavgis p35,38). Like Fr Arseny, all who minister must be “kneeling internally” as Chryssavgis puts it, admitting our weakness and woundedness (p35) like St Paul, the “chief of sinners”, so that our weakness can be an opportunity for the divine strength which is “made perfect in weakness” (p38). Out of the weakness of fear of interrogation, Fr Arseny was given intense prayer (p81). He responded to being cast into a freezing, metal punishment cell as an opportunity: “God has allowed us to pray aloud”! And out of this weakness came the divine strength which allowed him not only to pray aloud, but to serve with angels for two whole days, surviving the freezing temperatures along with his cellmate (p34-7).

This intensity of prayer which brings strength out of weakness should be a characteristic of the priestly vocation which “arises precisely from and leads precisely to the Cross” (Chryssavgis p36) – and beyond the cross to the resurrection-communion: out of death comes life, but a life which is continually broken and distributed, poured out and distributed in communion for the benefit of all. The weakness manifest as service Fr Arseny’s life describes is properly symbolised in the fact that he is given his old, tattered prison jacket as the vestment in which to serve the heavenly Liturgy among the angels, saints and martyrs.

Because of his authority gained from service in the camp, when Fr Arseny lay sick, the other prisoners, to whom death was an everyday occurrence, cared about him, feeling his impending death “in a special way” (p43) and in prayer, he felt their support. Seeing their souls and understanding the way they had shared suffering together, he understood he could not leave them. In this moment of clarity he also understood that among people he had previously seen as ordinary prisoners, there were great saints and “true ascetics in the faith” (p45). He prayed, “O Lord! Where was I? Pardon me and have mercy on me. I only saw myself. I was deluded, I did not have enough faith in people.” Chryssavgis points out that it is in the communion (koinonia) of the Church, in our common work (leitourgia) that we can fully face and overcome our weaknesses. In speaking of our failings and hard-heartedness, the gospel speaks to “communion and love, the love that is true and costly” (p40-41) in which we can face our weaknesses together in order to allow divine strength to be manifest in our body. “Each person contributes to this divine-human community, not simply by the service that each renders but by the sacred mystery that each one is” (Chryssavgis p40).

May we, through the cross of our own weakness, through the communion of persons in the one body of Christ, through the manifestation of divine strength in our personal weaknesses, come to know that heavenly Liturgy in which all our wounds will be glorified and our imperfections “changed from glory into glory”.