In St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we hear some peculiar language being used to describe for us the a proper disposition of the Orthodox spiritual life. We know that St. Paul was a man that was beloved by God. Despite starting off as a persecutor of Christians, he was granted the tremendous blessing of seeing the risen Lord in a blinding light on the road to Damascus. After his conversion, he travelled to many places, and in the name of our Lord, was able to heal the sick and give sight to the blind. We learn in the epistles this morning that he was even granted Divine Visions of Paradise…hearing and seeing things that cannot possibly be described in words.
Despite all these blessings, we hear something rather peculiar at the end of his words to the Corinthians today…when St. Paul says: “…lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.”
St. Paul was given a thorn in his flesh…a difficult cross of some kind to bear. When this beloved Disciple of God pleaded with our Lord for relief, the response He received is perhaps one of the most eye-opening sentences in the Epistles: “My Grace is sufficient for you, for my Strength is made perfect in weakness.”
“My Grace is sufficient for you, for my Strength is made perfect in weakness”
As I was meditating on these words, one of the images that immediately came to mind was perhaps a future saint in our Church, a priest named Fr. George Calciu. He was a very outspoken defender of the Orthodox faith, living in a country that was ruled by hardline communist atheists, who did everything they could to stamp out the thought of freedom and faith in the hearts of the citizens.
Fr. George was sentenced to a now famous prison called “Pitesti”, where an experiment was carried out on prisoners where they used any means necessary to “reeducate” the political prisoners to become hardline atheists that were obedient to the state.
“They took very distinct steps. The first step was to destroy the personality of the youth. For example, the guards would come together with a group of young prisoners who had converted to communism, into a cell where there were perhaps twenty young students and would try to intimidate them. They would beat them without mercy. They could even kill somebody. Generally, they would kill one of them, the one who opposed them the most; the most important one. Generally, he was a leader. They would beat and even kill him. Thus the terror began.”
“Then, they would force you to unmask. They wanted to force you to say, “I lied when I said “I believe in God”. I lied when I said “I love my mother and my father.” So everyone was to deny every principle, every feeling they had...”
“There was no torture, moral or physical, that was not used…to be completely naked and to be beaten and forced to submerge your head in a bucket of excrement…you cannot not imagine…only the devil could give images like that.”
One could only imagine in their worst nightmares what the prisoners of Pitesti had to go through in the name of the demonic. Yet like St. Paul, we hear a peculiar reaction from Fr. George when he reflected on that time. He said:
“We were freed, and we were happy to be free, but we had a kind of nostalgia about the prison. And we could not explain it to others. They said we were crazy. How could you miss prison? Because in prison we had the most spiritual life. We reached levels that were are not able to reach in this world. Isolated, anchored in Jesus Christ, we had joys and illuminations that this world cannot offer us. There are no words to express exactly the feeling we had there. Those who have not had our spiritual experience cannot understand that we could be happy in prison...Can you imagine: We were in a cell without windows, without air, humid, filthy, yet we had moments of happiness that we never reached in freedom. I cannot explain it.”
“My Grace is sufficient for you, for my Strength is made perfect in weakness”
How often, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do we look upon our infirmities and the difficulties of life as a curse. I reflect on the difficulties from the last several years we as a parish have had to endure:
A Covid Pandemic that isolated so many…yet in these moments of weakness, the remembrance of God was awakened in the hearts of so many, who began to see the material life for what it is…shallow and unable to satisfy our natural desire for the Grace of the Kingdom.
“…for my Strength is made perfect in weakness.”
We have faced significant trials and tribulations in the midst of building up a temple to the Glory of God. It has been stressful…testing our patience and faith. Yet I can say that these past few years have been the most prayerful of my entire life…and in those moments where I am overcome by stress, are the moments that I feel closest to God.
“…for my Strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Give glory to God for the “thorns of the flesh” dear ones…because it is in the darkest and most difficult moments of our life when our Lord shines the brightest.