METROPOLITAN ANTHONY BLOOM
At every instant of our lives we can be authentic and real if we choose the risk of being what we are and of not aiming at copying a model or identifying ourselves with preconceived images. But our true self cannot be discovered merely by watching our empirical self, but only in God and through him. Each of us is an image of the Living God, but an image which, like an old painting that has been tampered with, overlaid or clumsily restored to the point of being unrecognizable, yet in which some features of the original survive; a specialist can scrutinize it and, starting with what is still genuine, clean the whole painting of all its successive additions. St. Paul advises us to find ourselves in Christ and Christ in us; instead of attaching ourselves to what is wrong, ugly and sinful, to learn to see what is already in the image of God and, having discovered it, to remain faithful to our own truest and best self. Instead of asking ceaselessly the questions ‘what is wrong with me?’ why not ask ourselves the questions ‘in what way am I already akin to God? in harmony with him? How far am I on the way of reaching the full measure of the stature of Christ? Would not that be more inspiring in our striving for perfection?
We are encompassed on all sides by worries, concerns, fears and desires and so inwardly perturbed that we hardly ever live within ourselves — we live beside ourselves. We are so much in a state of befuddlement that it takes either acts of God or a deliberate discipline to come to our senses and begin that inward journey which will lead us through ourselves to God himself. God tries without ceasing to call us back, to open the door of our inner cell. His love, wise and far-sighted, may seem ruthless to us at times, for does not the guardian angel of Hermas say to him: ‘Be of good cheer, Hermas, God will not abandon you before He breaks either your heart or your bones!’
We seldom perceive God’s mercy when it is expressed to us through illness, bereavement or loneliness, and yet how often it is the only way in which God can put an end to the inner and outer turmoil which carries us away like a flood! How often we exclaim ‘If only I had a short period of peace, if only something made me aware that life had greatness, that eternity exists!’ and God sends us such moments when we are brought up short by illness or accident; but instead of understanding that the hour of recollection, of withdrawal and of renewal has come, we fight desperately to return as fast as possible to our former state, rejecting the gift concealed in that act of God which frightens us. And when bereavement comes to us, instead of growing and becoming as great as life and death, we shrink into self-centeredness and self-pity and lose sight of the eternity into which we could enter together with the one who, as St. Paul says, ‘is now clothed with eternity.’
Meditations (pp. 12,13)
God will repair what has been shattered, but not by mending it with something else. Rather, out of the old and very same material of its origin He will impart to it an appearance of beauty pleasing to Himself; and the resurrection of corruptible bodies in the glory of incorruption will not take away their nature by the utter destruction thereof, but will work only a qualitative change of condition. For it is not another body that will be resurrected, but the same body in another condition, as the Apostle says: “It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in ignominy, it will rise in glory; it is sown in weakness, it will rise in strength; it is sown an animal body, it will rise a spiritual one.” There will, therefore, be a change, but this does not mean an annihilation. And if that which was, rises up as that which it was not, it has not lost its original material but has perfected it unto glory.
