HUMILITY AS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CHURCH

Luke Bullock

Stepping out of the noise of Geary Boulevard and into the Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral, a profound sense of awe envelops me. Though but a sliver of the cityscape, inside, the Cathedral expands into a cosmic vastness. The floor-to-ceiling frescos, the fixed icon stands, the palpable presence of St. John Maximovich, the triptych of royal doors: the entire pattern conspires to put me in my place – small, yet welcomed; astonished yet intimately engaged. There is no mistaking where I am. In a moment, I recognize you standing with me, both of us oriented towards the veiled altar. As candlelight parts the darkness, we hear the prayers of vespers among the rising smoke of the incense. All of this calls our attention toward the kingdom of heaven (Luke 17:21).

We are planted there, amid the cloud of witnesses and angelic host as members of a royal priesthood within the divine order, gathered around the sacred mysteries of Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). With wonder, we bow and worship. With a collective voice, we sing, “The Lord is God,” remembering “the wonderful deeds of Him who called [us] out of darkness in His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Our attention turns to the east, in anticipation of the coming of Christ. We behold in the apse the Virgin of the Sign: the true ark of the covenant, the vessel of the Divine Word. We find ourselves living the eternal realities here and now. As Peter, James, and John fall before the transfigured Christ, so we too sink to the ground. As Mary accepts the Christ-child back from Symeon, so we too receive the body of Christ. As the disciples experience the tongues of fire in the upper room, so we too, the gathered, welcome the Holy Spirit. In our ascent, we recognize the heavenly throne as the one and the same sacrificial altar. Through the cross, we are killed and made alive. We are put in our place –humbled, yet elevated; awestruck, yet at home.

On the walls, the story of cosmic salvation unfolds and expands with tales of our mothers and fathers in Christ. These illumined portraits of our namesakes invite us to a continual family reunion. The greatest among those born of women, St. John, points to his cousin, the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world (Matthew 11:11; Revelation 13:8). More spacious than the heavens, Mary directs our gaze towards her son, Emmanuel (Luke 2:52). Amidst such majesty, we simultaneously confront our own smallness and discover our hope. Above us, in the dome, the Ancient of Days, Christ Himself, reigns. Beneath Him are the prophets, the scribes of Holy Scripture, and the four evangelists, the angels of Ezekiel’s vision. Clouds of witnesses fill the space below. Here, we too find our place. Called out of darkness into light, from sin to holiness, from the fleshly to spiritual life, from death to life, we are summoned to form the new Jerusalem, living stones bonded to the cornerstone, the lowest law. We stand with the Theotokos, the bodiless powers, the prophets, apostles, bishops, martyrs, ascetics, and all the ranks of saints. We are placed in a hierarchy, an order. Our ecclesiology is written on our walls.

Within this sacred space stands the assembly of the faithful, worshipping “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), comprised fundamentally of children.

Babies join their holy noise to the heavenly choir. Children old enough to stand cross themselves and kiss the saints. They play at Church.1 They receive the beauty with sincere simplicity. Jesus tells us, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). For these diminutives, the mysteries unfurl with an exquisite wonder and unadulterated joy. As Jesus says, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). They rush eagerly up the line of holy communion, dancing and spinning. They are open and trusting. They are little and lowly. They are, naturally, model Christians. True life in the Church starts with a child’s heart.

Where there are children, there are parents, and where there are parents, a home, the foundation of which is marriage. Indeed, marriage is the home, a grand little catholic church unto itself. Within this sacred crucible, love realizes its ultimate purpose. Each spouse learns to embrace the other’s existence as part of the fulfilment of his own. The man is drawn to the beauty of the woman. Ecstatically, he springs forth beyond the confines of vain flesh into a great mystical realm. Her energy mingles with his and she receives his love, then nurtures the new life within her. Each offers his or her body to the other in their uniqueness, male and female. In this profound intimacy, their union rises above the earthly.

Amid the realm of the ordinary, husband and wife offer themselves authentically to the other. The husband sacrifices himself, holding nothing back, and in turn, the wife reciprocates. Their mutual self-giving begins naturally to wilt the root of selfishness and self-sufficiency. Shedding the armor of personal opinions, preferences, desires, each must crucify his and her own isolated ego. They compete not for power and control, but in service and compassion. This free competition becomes, in truth, a dance of humble love. As Fr. Dumitru Stanilaoe writes: “You cannot become free for good or for love except in relation with another person who encourages you to do good, inspires you in your aspirations toward good, and communicates powers that increase your powers to do good.”2 Within the sacrificial rites of marriage, the walls of isolated existence crumble and personal limitations dissolve. As St. Sophrony of Essex says, “Married couples must learn self-emptying. They must give way to one another. Then they learn to accept another existence in their own existence.”3 Children help, with their diapers and late-night tantrums. The defiant wills of these little ones require a love that is patient, gentle, and true. Out of necessity, parents reshape their lives. They relinquish old routines and narrow habits. What children demand from their parents is nothing short of sacrificial love. Continuing this ecstatic dynamic, the marriage extends beyond its borders, opening its doors to the poor and afflicted, the stranger and the lonely. Without hospitality and almsgiving, the home loses its high meaning. As Fr. Alexander Schmemann explains, “The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustment’ or ‘mental cruelty.’ It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the kingdom of God.”4 Marriage is intended to be an icon of hospitality exemplified by Abraham and Sarah as they hosted the three angels – the communion of love from which emerges the people of Israel.

This mystery is a great one, and this mystery, St. Paul tells us, is that of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). It is here, within this revelation of man and woman, that the very essence of our ecclesial life takes shape. Thus St. Paul’s marital counsels are not merely a domestic ethic, but a blueprint for relationships of the Church. The husband lays down his life for his beloved. He is the head as the source of fulfillment, encouraging and equipping the wife. Such headship, indeed any headship, can be expressed only in kenotic love (Philippians 2:7ff). Husband and wife share an organic unity, as one body, one flesh, in harmony, as also Christ is the head of the church, His body (Ephesians 5:23, cf. 4:15–16). This symphony of mutual submission and love between husband and wife reverberates far beyond the confines of the home. It resonates with the deepest truths of the cosmos – the reconciliation and communion between God and creation. God the Father has revealed “the mystery of His will … set forth in Christ as a plan [οἰκονομίαν] for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9–10). In short, the economy of salvation is revealed solely in the humility of Christ’s incarnation. As St. Maximos the Confessor states, “[T]he condescension through the flesh of the Only Son … had reached the lowest point of the universe where the weight of sin had confined us.”5 Humility is not

1. Archimandrite Vasileios, The Thunderbolt of Ever-Living Fire (Alhambra: Sebastian Press, 2014), pp. 37- 38: “Our Mother [the Theotokos] lets us play all night, and you feel that the services are a long game. You play, you give yourself completely to it, until you are completely exhausted. The one who sings wholeheartedly, the one who lights the polyeleos (chandelier), the lamps; it is all a wondrous game because it is true. Our life is a game…. When St. Seraphim was alive, some children came and played around him. When they came back to their parents, they said they had met another child who had white hair and beard and how they played with him.”

2. Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, Vol. 4 (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012), p. 109.

3. Saint Sophrony, quoted in Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, I know a Man in Christ (Levadia, Greece: Holy Monastery of the Birth of the Theotokos, 2015), p. 372.

4. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), p. 90.

5. Maximos the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father, trans. George C. Berthold (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 118.

6. Maximos the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy, trans. George C. Berthold (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 187.

7. Archimandrite a mere virtue; it is the basis of Church order; it is a force that penetrates to the very bedrock of the world and stretches towards the ultimate destination. Humility lights the path of love and guides us into all truth, from the depths of creation to the heights of the new Jerusalem. is a disaster, a process which is unnatural for all. Equality within the Church means that each person finds his own rhythm. That he delights in his life. That he finds glory in humility, wealth in voluntary poverty, and true, total marriage with the grace of God through purity of life.7

Vasileios, The Thunderbolt of Ever-Living Fire, p. 66.

The members of the body of Christ are transformed in the collective stream of repentance. This process of metanoia means the acquisition of the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:7f.f). All who are washed in the waters of the Holy Spirit enter in naked poverty and emerge clothed in the divine humility of Christ. So our lowliness is transformed in Christ from abject humiliation to glorified humanity. We who find ourselves within the embrace of the Church are called to embark on the Way, this sacred journey – a path of self-emptying and unending surrender to the divine will. Transcending personal desires and worldly ambitions, this path beckons us to draw ever nearer to the very heart of God.

Each Christian serves with a unique gift. All concelebrate. No one is left out of the common work on behalf of the world, the liturgy. “To all in equal measure [the Church] gives and bestows one divine form and designation, to be Christ’s and to carry His name.”6 This, however, does not entail a uniformity of its members.

The royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9) of all believers does not suggest uniformity of roles. There is one baptism and one gift of the Spirit, but not all are given the gifts to be apostles, pastors, or teachers “for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). Only selected persons are ordained to serve as bishops, presbyters, and deacons, but all members are called to share in the common work of Christ, the Great High Priest.

The Church is not a monolithic entity, but a diverse community. It is a singular theandric being comprised of many members, each bearing unique gifts and talents.

As Archimandrite Vasileios states:

Equality does not mean leveling – that

Within the sacred rites, there is silence and there is song. No saint speaks of himself and no true message is heard but the Word of God. We sing of the “secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification” (1 Corinthians 2:7). The deacons cense the faithful, calling us deeper into the kingdom. The presbyters preside at the holy altar, interceding for the salvation of the world. The bishops unite us around the one creed, the one chalice, the one Triune God. Messengers of the Most High invite us to hear the echo of self-emptying love resounding through the very structure of the universe. The Apostle beckons us to surrender to the mystical dance of marriage. In the High Place, our humble Lord and Savior calls us to repent and become like children (Matthew 18:3).

With radiant beauty, the saints bear witness to the essence of the Church – cosmic and familial, towering in its humility. This great ecclesiastical order takes root in the most tender corners of the heart –a sacred pattern in which uniqueness is harmonized and all serve as living stones in the ever-expanding temple of the Lord. Humility is fundamental to the energy of the Church. Enlightening and empowering, it draws us all to journey together, unified in diversity, into the heart of God, where every soul finds its own rhythm, and where, in the symphony of faith, the whole of humanity fulfills its divine destiny.