“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
How can we know the Word of God? Is it by reading the Gospel and the Holy Scriptures—yes, but more. Is it by reading the lives of Holy Saints and their writings—yes, but more. Is it by fasting, praying, and doing generous alms-giving—yes, but still more. For the Word is God is not just writings, practice, actions, or thinking, but Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. We need to get to know by all means this Son of God, and begin a constant loving relationship with Him starting today.
God is not a principle. He does not just have attributes that we need to learn and rules that we need to practice. He is a living Person, closer to us than any human relationship that is possible here or in the next world. He is the Light that shines here in our limited awareness but often hidden, and that shines openly in Heaven as the source of all perception, “…Light of Light, true God of true God….” He does just have love, or goodness, or truth, or life, but He actually is Love, Goodness, Truth, and Life.
And most importantly, we are made in His Image and Likeness, therefore without our image becoming cleansed, and purified, and true, we cannot ourselves be the genuine person as we were created to be and become—filled with His Image and Likeness shining within us. That is why the Saints are shown with the same nimbus or halo as Christ is shown in His holy icons.
Let us open our hearts and minds today to invite Him in, to ask quietly but intently that He come very near, to ask humbly and tenderly that He becomes nearer and dearer to us than anything we can have known or imagined before. And that He shows us all of His Love, His Goodness, His Truth, and His Life in our hearts that we may learn to love Him with all of our heart, and with all of our soul, and with all of our mind, and through this to also love our neighbor as ourselves. O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Amen.
The Monastics at St. Isaac of Syria Skete
and at the Convent of St. Silouan
and the Faithful at St. Nicholas Church
and the Staff at Orthodox Byzantine Icons and St. Isaac’s Bookstore.