The influence of the present environment is so strong, its mere power of suggestion so powerful, that a man may find himself advocating, with a certain enthusiasm, opinions which are in reality the exact contrary of those to which his own character would naturally take him.

- T. E. Hulme, A Tory Philosophy

The Image of God

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy our thinking about the meaning of icons inevitably leads us to thinking about the phrase 'image of God'.

In the story of creation the human person is said to have been made in the image and likeness of God. The 'image' has usually been thought of as something given and the 'likeness' as a potential. The relation of image to likeness might be likened to that of child to adult. It is often put this way: made in the image of God we are called to grow into His likeness.

But what is that image? Where can we find that image in ourselves and in others? There are a number of answers. Some suggest that the image is found in our faculty for reasoning, logic, analysis, understanding, that is in our mind. Others have thought that it is found in our ability to make choices and act freely. Still others have found it in our capacity for self-transcendence. It has been pointed out that there is something fundamentally relational in the image, for God says 'let us make man in our image' - and so the image is thought to have something to do with inter-personal communion.

These things are not, perhaps, mutually exclusive. The image, essentially mysterious, may have many aspects. If we were to think of the image of God as love, for example, we would see that love involves understanding (mind), action (will), self-transcendence, communion. Perhaps our capacity for love is as good an understanding of the image of God as any. We are created with the capacity for love and we are called to nurture this gift and grow in it into the likeness of God Who is, after all, Love.

There is more, however. The Apostle Paul tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ is the unique and perfect image of God. Following the Apostle and addressing God the Father, our Liturgy of St Basil says of our Lord Jesus Christ that He is the image 'of Thy goodness, the seal of Thy very likeness, showing forth in Himself Thee, O Father'.

Christ is the image of God. He is love incarnate. The image of God can be thought of as Christ in us, something given in our making, renewed in baptism, nurtured in the sacraments, built up through prayer and moral education, expressed in good-works and Christian character, growing unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is our life in Christ, and at the heart of this is love.

Asceticism: the Cost of Discipleship

(from past years) Asceticism: the Cost of Discipleship

It is sometimes asked, why do monastic and ascetic saints figure so prominently in our church life? For example, during lent we have made much of the life and witness of St Gregory Palamas, St John of the Ladder, and today St Mary of Egypt in our liturgical worship and our seasonal teaching
and reflections. Wouldn't it be good to celebrate the witness of some married saints and saints whose sanctity shone forth in family life? Wouldn't it be good to reflect rather more on the kind of asceticism that must be part and parcel of leading a godly life in the world?

This is a good question. A partial answer as to why we do what we do may lie in the fact that so much of the content of our liturgical tradition comes from monastic sources and is promulgated by church authorities who were themselves monastics. Monasticism is a very powerful resource in the ongoing life of the Church and the pre-eminence of monastics and ascetics in our liturgical calendar and thus in our hymnography and celebration is simply part of the givenness of the tradition we have received.

But if we have received this tradition, it is surely because Orthodox believers are, generally speaking, lovers of monks and nuns and monasticism. It seems to me that the traditional role of monastics and monasteries in the piety of believers is not something imposed from without but comes from a deep affection, attraction and resonance within. This piety need not preclude a sense that more emphasis on married saints and Christian family life would be helpful.

But the most important answer to this question lies in the internal, thematic meaning of lent as a time for the renewal of our discipleship by means of the opening of our hearts and minds to God's grace through ascetic effort. There is a cost to discipleship and that cost is the inner meaning
of asceticism. The whole point of asceticism is to make discipleship costly. Unless the lenten disciplines of fasting. prayer and good works have an impact on self-satisfaction and a self-centred ordering and way of life, unless they inconvenience us in some way, unless they have a sacrificial character, unless they subvert in some way our nicely-ordered and comfortable lives, they don't have much point. For the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force and violent men bear it way and no one ever attained salvation through convenience and ease.

Although monastic life cannot lay absolute claim to ascetic practice, it is in the lives of some of these saints that we find a very powerful and inspiring image of the cost of discipleship. This is especially the case with St Mary of Egypt. Her profound repentance, her ascetic struggle, and
her dedication to prayerful communion with God make her an example and a powerful intercessor for us.

What is pleaded

What is pleaded in the Mass is precisely the argosy or voyage of the Redeemer, his entire sufferings, death, resurrection and ascension. It is this that is offered on behalf of us argonauts and the whole argosy of mankind and indeed in some sense of all earthly creation, which, as Paul says, suffers a common travail.

David Jones, An Introduction to the Ancient Mariner