The wondrous

Author: John (Shakhovsky), archbishop of San Francisco

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The wonderful lies on the grounds of everything and the last boundaries of all things. It is contained in creation and constitutes the truth of his higher being. And the fall of man is precisely coming out of wonder.

In the earthly time, the wonderful world does not have its full expression – here, in history, it is reached only through the mystery, and not so much that it teaches as inspires man through faith to cross the boundaries of the world. And the more man is a believer in the living God, the more the wonderful world is revealed to His consciousness.

In fact, one wants to live with only the wonderful one. To which not only believers in God testify: unbelievers also want to see in the wonderful higher sense of their existence and the last word in human history; They also strive for the wonderful. In a critical for his people, the unbelieving chairman of the Council of Ministers openly testifies to his faith in the miracle: “I believe in the miracle, because I believe in France” (Paul Raynaud, in my speech of 21.5.1940). And one even farther from the faith in God says, “The peoples of our country have become capable of great works and miracles in the creation of the new life” (Molotov’s speech of 27.10.1939) … Many such examples can be brought, and from different areas of life, to the fire of the world of wonder. “Wonders of Technology” and “Wonders of Science”, “Miracles of Art” and “Wonders of Nature”, “Wonders of Creativity” – everywhere we listen to the immortal human soul grief, screaming for the Higher, the wonderful world, even when it professes materialism. Man does not want to disappear into the materialistic everyday life. The wonderful attracts him with a high, albeit vague liberation. Even without giving freedom, it gives her image.

“Wonders of Science”, “Miracles of Creativity”-all these are sparks of the same ancient, abducted by Prometheus, heavenly fire … Even the most materialistic man seems to be the spiritual vision that he is capable of rising above the earth, to become a “lord” and his “creation” that is endless In the miracle of immortality – the same man thinks to acquire with his personal or collective power, without God … Such is one of the projections of the fall of man.

In the religious area, sin is that people are looking for more wonderful than God. Herod, wanting to see Jesus, “… hoped to see a miracle to get from Him” ​​(Luke 23: 8). There are people requiring miracles for their faith (“… Jews want figures”; 1 Cor. 1:22). If they do not meet “miracles”, then they do not have a sense of closeness to the higher world. The power of the wonderful is taken by them as “Deux ex Machina” – something that externally brings them closer to the Higher World. Another time, people are eagerly looking for signs and miracles in the world, without realizing that the coming of a false-christus in the world, “by action of Satan”, will be (and already performed) “with every power and with omens and false miracles” (2 salt. 10:41). Usually, such people want to make the righteous grant in this century and to give themselves to the wrong ones for their evils: the confirmation of this law strengthens them in faith, and its violation moves them away from it. For them, not yet knowing the mystery of the God of God and of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is said, “… If you do not see the face and miracles, you will not believe” (John 4:48).

By means of the psychology of these people, we understand why the Savior has invariably opposed their aspirations and rejected their path to unity with his truth. “There will be no face of this kind” (Mark 8:12). God wants to make man a selfless Son of His Heavenly Righteousness, and those seeking only “wonderfulness”, not the last righteousness, want to be slaves to their blinding need. Their faith and love for the Lord and His commandments do not satisfy them. “We walk with faith, not with vision” (1 Cor. 5: 7) it seems to them saltlessly, insufficient – they do not protect themselves from false “visions” and “revelations”. They appear to them all sorts of dreams and dreams, suggesting the thought that special revelations elevate them over other people. These phenomena of “charm” of self -threshing are well studied in spiritual science. Souls who are only afraid of God ..This faith does not introduce into the Kingdom of God, and it has not brought to the earth the Son of human to the earth. However, she is attractive in that she is crossed. Instead of the Cross of Christ, our inner dying in God and the resurrection of the man, there are only miracles in it. Christian Science calls on this direction.

As there are unbelievers in God, but the wonderful in one form or another, so there are “believers” who “do not believe in miracles”, do not agree, for example, to perceive the supernatural entry of the creator into the world, nor the birth of the God -man, or his resurrection. Within the mathematical, geometric, mechanical, etc. “natural” laws, and almost everything that is done in the world is done only by those studied by earthly science. Such is the faith of the “acts”, who believe in God abstractly, and the very poorly distinguished faith of the “Teists” who believe in God in an indefinite way. Both “recognize” God, but they do not know the spirit of God -lords, do not know the ministry of God in Spirit and Truth.

There are others who want to live on their lives without disturbing their soul, taking the nomenclature of values ​​and truths once and forever. For such people, everything must be “understandable”, be “explained”. The existence of a great and mysterious universe is uncomfortable and even painful for them – it shrinks them, wounds them and kills them. From the Gospel, such acknowledges only the usual, accepted in the daily life of life relations, “the concept.” From where the famous and so far from the truth is the claim that science “denies wonders” that “science is contrary to faith” … Man fears encroachments upon his autonomous life even from the Heavenly Father! He is capable of considering even God’s call, even Christ’s command, as such an encroachment.

However, the man who believes in the Son of God knows that everything in the world is wonderful – in creation, in providence and in redemption. And that everything in the world is marvelous – in action and in instructions, in warnings and consolations from the Comforter Spirit!

In higher science, matter increasingly stands before man as an unsolved mystery of the wondrous life. In science, such abysses, such expanses of matter are discovered, that the very concept of “matter” (as something “material” – in the old sense of the word) disappears. The concept of energy, however, already touches the boundaries of the spiritual world…

Representatives of astrophysics testify to the abysses no longer of infinitely small, but of infinitely large worlds – and in the contemplations of scientists, one sometimes feels such awe before the wonders and mysteries of God’s world that the heart rises with new strength to the glorification of the Lord God and His wondrous wonders… Here is the crown of true knowledge, which, according to the apostle, does not boast, but edifies (1 Cor. 8:1).

However, the soul cannot yet become God-knowing from the testimony of scientists alone about the mystery and wonder of the world. As in spiritual contemplations, so in the case of observing the harmony of the physical world, a person must have a heart that thirsts for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). And for such a heart, the conclusions of modern science are, of course, a direct path to God. However, the acceptance of the spirit of faith comes only through Christ. He is the only Door to the Father.

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The world is wonderful. Whether we marvel at it in small or in great things, it amazes us. However, whether our amazement will be empty or fruitful – this is something that already depends on ourselves… Here is the area of ​​our freedom.

Parallel to the wonder contemplated through scientific knowledge, the great “artistic” wonder of creation is also revealed before us. Everything in the world is unique! Everything, down to the smallest atom, is the work of the Greatest Artist.

The wonder lies not only outside of us. Even more, it is within us. The sunny, joyful feelings that overwhelm us after dark, painful or murderous spiritual experiences, is this not a miracle? And love and mercy, and generosity, sacrifice, purity, wisdom, bright courage and long-suffering – are not all these wonderfully shining spiritual diamonds and rays of the Eternal Life that surrounds us and lives in us? And prayer, transforming with spiritual fire our mind, heart, our outlook on life, is this not also a miracle? There is much, much that the living soul can say about these true miracles that it sees around it in the world and that it joyfully contemplates within itself. As the Lord lives and as my soul lives! – exclaims the Old Testament prophet (cf. 1 Sam. 20:3), and with him also that person who sees the wonderful. In God nothing is accidental – everything is wonderful and is providential. In God every phenomenon in the world becomes amazing, exalting. The “natural” becomes higher than natural, transparent to eternity… In Christ Jesus, every human life becomes something more than natural. The Spirit brings everyone face to face with the mystery of the Age to Come.

However, in the wondrous world there is also another wondrousness, and this is the radiance of the unique and personal adoption of man by God. Many miracles were performed through the apostles in the world (cf. Acts 19:11). In Cana of Galilee “Jesus began His miracles” (John 2:11), the miracles of the adoption of man. A true miracle is the manifestation of truth. A window and a door to the higher world, an exit to what is authentically existing.

The wondrous must be hidden. “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes; even so, Father, for such was your good pleasure” (Matt. 11:25). Seekers of false miracles stumble upon the truth. Protecting the weak, sick human vision from the too bright Light, the Lord hides the truly wonderful in the world from many eyes, and in this way hides Himself. However, the gaze that is directed to the simplicity of the Truth, the mind that is cleansed of false wisdom, the heart free from false belief, sees all the wonderfulness of existence.

The consolation of the Holy Spirit is a sweet conversation of God the Father with the children, the speech of the Father… The “others” do not listen to it. Or, listening, they do not understand.

The one who loves God does not seek miracles, because he has already found them, having loved God. Instead of miracles, the believer seeks in God more and more purity and depth – more and more Christ’s wisdom and love.

The Lord fled from incessant healings and saturating people with bread. He has hidden and continues to hide His power over the world to this day, revealing it to people only as a manifestation of His mercy.

The apocryphal tales senselessly seek to attribute to the Savior much more miracle-working than what was manifested in Him: they make Him, the Infant, sculpt sparrows from clay and bring them to life, and perform other, similar to these “external miracles”… In the Gospel, however, the entire divine measure of the wonderful is revealed, its depth and purity.

Not individual phenomena, but the entire world of the wonderful is before us and it is all within us. And the less we calculate this wonderfulness, the more we see it. Seeking only obedience to the Word of God, we discover this wonderfulness of the world and achieve our revealed love. In Fidelity to the Word, our will is purified. By not seeking the wonderful, we are surrounded and overtaken by it.

The miraculous does not bind our will, it does not enslave the imagination. We are bound only by the love of Christ and we know that it alone has overcome the Law.

The wise heart lives with the miraculous – the unreasonable is intoxicated by the miraculous. There are many, many “false miracles” in the world! Evil is coming and it has already come “… with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9). And the man who seeks unusualness and novelty more than the righteousness of the Lord, easily believes in false spirits and perceives the servants of lies as his leaders, and his empty dreams as revelations.

The Pharisees demanded the descent of the Son of God from the Cross in order to believe. This miracle they continue to demand, although now they are even less able than then to believe in the truth of Him who was crucified and resurrected.

And we know that the greatest miracle of Christ’s mercy – the resurrection of Lazarus – was the beginning of Golgotha: “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together and said, ‘What shall we do? This Man does many miracles… From that day on they took counsel to kill Him’” (John 11:47, 53).

No phenomena have the power to convince a person of anything true if his heart is not ready to accept the Truth.

The story will end with the beast and the “false prophet who worked miracles before him” (Rev. 19:20) being captured. Only then will all this ghostly wonder that seduces people, that places on them the mark of the beast – an emotion that is unworthy of man – be completely dissipated. Then the true wonder will be revealed – as the truth for all creation.

Source in Russian: John, Bishop of San-Francisco, “Chudesnoe” – In: Vestnik VSHD, 38, 1955, p. 10-15.