Fr. Rafail Noica: What do we do when we feel tested to our limit?
And to a certain degree, YOU too are like this, like Lazarus, in the moments when Christ appears indifferent when you are stretched to your limits, and even beyond your limit.
Excerpt, Conference: “Crisis in the Church” (Alba Iulia, 2003)
You are speaking about those moments when we are taken to the limit, at the end of our power, and I dare to add beyond, beyond this limit. I can’t give you a formula, because a formula doesn’t exist, and looking for a formula of escape [from these moments] is contained in the first fall of Adam. That is, “don’t wait for God to do something to divinize you, eat from that [tree] and your eyes will immediately be opened and you will become like God”–it doesn’t exist. Formula, formalism, formality, none of these things can save you, but what saves you is a personal relationship between your persona and God as a Person, and this is what saves you.
But I wanted to say that in the moments when you are taken to the limit, or possibly as you experience it beyond your limit, I would like to share what I learned from Father Sophrony: don’t forget–may God put it in your hearts–this represents the measure of faith which God shows you. Thus, the measure of your suffering is also the measure of the faith that God has in you–a weak, helpless, sinful soul taken to its limits, beyond its limits. And when I say beyond its limits, I believe that it is also a reality, and this “beyond” is because in our spiritual life, in our journey from the non-being which we still bear within us in our becoming, we go further through this –how do I put it–we transcend the moments of our non-being.
God oftentimes takes us beyond our limits, but our limits expand, and if we have patience in those moments, and what patience? Say “Lord” and if you can’t say anything, don’t forget that the Lord loves you. You feel that He does not exist? It doesn’t matter, feel all that you want to feel, or all that the devil wants you to feel. We have the testimony of at least 2,000 years from the Philokalia if we don’t take the Old Testament into consideration as well, that with God there is only victory. Pass that threshold and you will see that your limits have been enlarged, until we become unlimited as the Lord is.
Losing our limits, going beyond our limits sometimes goes through extreme moments. I would like to share these two things with you: there is no formula of escape; if you would like a formula, the only word would be “to assume,” to assume that moment with faith in a God Who loves us, responding with faith to the faith God shows us, so that He may treat us in this way.
I’ll give you an example: it is said that Lazarus was the friend of Christ. Look at the hymnography this week and especially for Saturday (of Lazarus) and Sunday. Look at how Christ says “Lazarus has become sick.” But He did not go to do something to heal him. He left him to die, He left him four days in the tomb until he began to rot (in the words of the Gospel), that is, he began to putrefy, his flesh began to decay. There are four resurrections that the Gospels speak about and it is a crescendo. The other three may be called clinical death. This was not the case with Lazarus! Christ did not raise him out of death, but out of decay! With the Divine power which created all of Creation out of nothing. Yes, but with whom could Christ work such a miracle except with a true friend of His? He had faith in Lazarus that he could take upon himself such a heavy canon, pain of death (indeed the pain of resurrection, as it seems that even the clinically dead go through great pain when revived; we don’t know how great was Lazarus’ pain, as it was not a clinical death, a resuscitation in the hospital, which also seems painful). But with who else except Lazarus? When Christ said “but this illness is not unto death, but for the glory of God,” whom else except a true friend, who had complete faith in Christ, could bear such a heavy penance in order to glorify God through his sufferings? Surely Lazarus was his friend–a great one! And to a certain degree, YOU too are like this, like Lazarus, in the moments when Christ appears indifferent when you are stretched to your limits, and even beyond your limit. That is not indifference! You must have faith that He who treats you like Lazarus treats you with the same degree of faith which you have within you, at least in as much as you desire Him.
And God will give you the rest, because the rest is patience, and many times there is no need for much patience. And if we know how to bear these moments, oh what resurrections follow. And speaking of resurrection, I am not speaking symbolically or metaphorically, but it is a reality, and not psychological, but spiritual. You come out a different person! And when Lazarus emerged from the tomb, the hymnography and synaxarion, all of the Church’s Tradition testifies that he was a different person! A different man returned from the dead! But also Silouan, after the word he received [“keep thy mind in hell and despair not”], when he experienced it, became a different Silouan; and Anthony, when he was about to die but Christ saved him at the last moment because he was nearly beaten to death by demons and lay dying, Christ appeared to him and brought him back to life. And a different Anthony emerged from this experience! And these are the things done by God’s mercy that take us beyond our weaknesses–awe-inspiring things because they are not given according to man’s measure. And for this reason I emphasize again: may God give us the strength [beyond our measure] in these moments! The Mother of God went through such an experience at the Cross, and the Apostles, and other moments which we see in the lives of the Saints.