Ritual and Fire

Monks and Pains

I may be discovering that, for me, the Spirit which moved through Symeon and Palamas is not done proving the point - to me - that ritual is meant to direct and even stoke fire, and therefore fire is more important than ritual if one is forced to choose. As I investigate ancient things, I can’t help but say, “give me a fire in the bones from the uncreated light and real Jesus over arcane motions any day... every day.”

I say that I want “His real presence, over simply a spoon in the mouth — over a red velvet exterior but where the life and soul are empty, and therefore unknowable, and in response to this vacuum at the end of all things the voice says, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you.’”

All who are truly Christian fear this phrase...I fear this phrase…This reaction in me, I know, is not meant to do away with the sacraments, but says that the sacraments as ritual without knowing Jesus are dangerous…worse than filthy rags, because they are now the worst deception — as is the case with all outward forms of Christian-Spiritual devoid of inward presence.

Reminds me of this sullied Monk in a Cave.

J: All ritual, all cadence, devoid of His radical dwelling, is a lie that puts us into the sleep of death. Never waking. Why do you sleep? 
M: Why wake when we are surrounded by so many pretty things?
J: But friend, it’s cold... you must wake and become warmed by the fire. 
M: No. I have my red velvet and icons for warmth. 
J: No, friend, without the fire, the icons grow cold, and you sleep now never to wake. 
M: Be silent, you know-nothing. Don’t you know what the Fathers say? You useless evangelical, you useless charismatic, you useless modern whose phronema rejects all things holy in Christ our Lord. 
J: But friend — 
M: Away with you! Depart from me.
And so Jesus left the man to his prayers, never to be seen again. As he left he wept on the side of the mountain, and turned his attention to the villages.

This is the Monk in ME, for nearly a decade, and still daily.

Christ have mercy.

And then the Master ran to his Son in the cave, and gave him life.

*Image from the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom

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For my reader,
I share these things because I want the very best life for you;
the very best life in Christ.

This is my prayer
and these;
these are my Confessions.