Preparing for Feasts
by Elder Amilianos of Simonopetra
Taken from a lecture delivered under the title ‘Have We Received The Holy Spirit?’ , and published in the book ‘The Way of The Spirit’, Indiktos Publishing Company, 2008.
Who could deny the splendor and magnificence of our feasts? They are God's own feasts, and make our hearts rejoice in Jesus Christ.
Each of us, to a greater or lesser extent, celebrated those feasts and took something from them. What did we take? To this question, each of us will have a different answer, because even though the Church is a unity, it is a unity of distinct personalities. It is an assembly of persons, each one of them whole and complete, standing before God, and not an anonymous, undifferentiated mass.
Thus it is entirely possible for all of us to be gathered together in church, to be standing next to each other and chanting in unison, but for each of us to get something different out of the experience.
And what each of us receives is known only to that person, only to the spirit of the man, which is in him, as well as to God the Spirit, Who searches the depths of our own spirit (cf. 1 Cor 2.10-11).
What, then, did we receive? In the first place, we received what we prepared ourselves to receive. Whatever food you've prepared, that's what you'll eat. Whatever bed you've made, that's the one you're going to lie on. Whatever you've sown in your field, that's what you'll reap. Throughout the liturgical year, then, we receive what we have prepared ourselves to receive. God will not bring something to fruition that we have not had a hand in cultivating; and what we cultivate, that which we expect to bear fruit, grows directly from the seeds we've sown within ourselves. Consequently, we'll get whatever it is our heart has prepared for itself. One person will get God; another will be moved by the chanting; another will gain a few insights; someone else the kingdom of heaven. Each will receive whatever it is he desired.In each instance, the preparation of the heart is fundamental.
And this is not an activity that we engage in only on the eve of great feasts. It is an unceasing activity, which the soul accomplishes within itself, making it holy, chosen, and able to receive God, or whatever God chooses to give it. God is as infinitely rich as we are poor, and thus we have need of Him (cf. 2 Cor 8.9). But what we find depends on the way we seek for it. The way we see God, in other words, determines what we shall see in God. This is why I say: what you've prepared yourself for is exactly what you'll receive. One person cultivates the wind, and reaps nothing. Another prepares to receive the Holy Spirit. It all depends.
So, the more we’ve prepared, the more room we’ve made, the more we’ve suffered, the more we’ve loved, the more we’ve cried aloud- wept and lamented without restraint- the more we’ll have received God Himself. Needless to say, all of this remains hidden beneath a cheerful countenance, beneath a smile, beneath the depths of true joy, beneath an entire life that witnesses to God by its tranquility, love and truth, because we know that, no matter what happens, God for us is everything,