One of the main highlights of the ongoing Synod of Bishops in the Vatican is the presence of the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, together with other ecumenical figures. I’d like to share here some excerpts of the Patriarch’s reflection during the celebration of vespers in the Sistine Chapel last Saturday, October 18. He spoke on the theme of using one's spiritual senses to perceive the Word of God by: listening to God’s Word, beholding God’s Word, and touching God’s Word.On hearing and speaking the Word of God, he affirms, "the Christian Church is, above all, a scriptural Church. Scripture is the living testimony of a lived history about the relationship of a living God with a living people." Then he voices out the challenge: "Christians must provide a unique perspective -- beyond the social, political, or economic -- on the need to eradicate poverty, to provide balance in a global world, to combat fundamentalism or racism, and to develop religious tolerance in a world of conflict."
Secondly, he spoke about beholding God’s Word in art and nature. He reflects, “the Word of God can be seen in nature and above all in the beauty of the icons: Nowhere is the invisible rendered more visible than in the beauty of iconography and the wonder of creation.(…) Icons are a visible reminder of our heavenly vocation, (...) underlining the Church’s fundamental mission to recognize that all people and all things are created and called to be 'good' and 'beautiful.” Regarding nature, he affirms, "All genuine 'deep ecology' is inextricably linked with deep theology. Even a stone bears the mark of God’s Word (St. Basil the Great). This is true of an ant, a bee and a mosquito, the smallest of creatures. For he spread the wide heavens and laid the immense seas; and He created the tiny hollow shaft of the bee’s sting.” And hence the challenge: Recalling our minuteness in God’s wide and wonderful creation only underlines our central role in God’s plan for the salvation of the whole world.
Lastly, how do we touch the Word of God? Bartholomew I said that God’s Word which receives his full embodiment in the sacrament of the Eucharist, can be touched and shared in the communion of saints and the sacramental life of the Church. "In the Eucharist," he explained, "the Word becomes flesh and allows us not simply to hear or see him, but to touch him with our own hands. Word and sacrament become one reality. The word ceases to be 'words' and becomes a Person, embodying in himself all human beings and all creation."
And hence the challenge for us too. Bartholomew I exhorts, "Each of us is called to 'become like fire,' to touch the world with the mystical force of God’s Word, so that -- as the extended Body of Christ -- the world, too, might say: 'Someone touched me!'
He adds, "Evil, is only eradicated by holiness, not by harshness. And holiness introduces into society a seed that heals and transforms. It is like the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust. The deepest layers need only shift a few millimeters to shatter the world’s surface.”
He adds, "Evil, is only eradicated by holiness, not by harshness. And holiness introduces into society a seed that heals and transforms. It is like the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust. The deepest layers need only shift a few millimeters to shatter the world’s surface.”
The presupposition for this spiritual revolution to occur is no other than radical 'metanoia' -- a conversion of attitudes, habits and practices -- for ways that we have misused or abused God’s Word, God’s gifts and God’s creation. The patriarch added: "The challenge before us is the discernment of God’s Word in the face of evil, the transfiguration of every last detail and speck of this world in the light of Resurrection. The victory is already present in the depths of the Church, whenever we experience the grace of reconciliation and communion."
