Faith is the path by which God and man meet each other. The first step is taken by God, who always and unconditionally believes in man. He gives man a certain sign, a certain premonition of His presence. Man hears a kind of mysterious call from God, and his step towards God is a response to this call. God calls man openly or secretly, tangibly or almost imperceptibly. But it is difficult for a person to believe in God if he does not first feel the calling. Faith is a mystery and a sacrament. Why does one person respond to the call, while another does not? Why is one, having heard the word of God, ready to accept it, while another remains deaf? Why does one, having met God on his way, immediately drop everything and follow Him, while another turns away and goes away? “Now as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother: for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me…” And they straightway left their nets, and followed Him. And going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John… and He called them. And straightway they left the boat and their father, and followed Him” (Matt. 4:18-22). What is the secret of this readiness of the Galilean fishermen, leaving everything, to follow Christ, Whom they were seeing for the first time in their lives? And why did the rich young man, to whom Christ also said, “Come and follow Me,” not respond immediately, but “went away sorrowful” (Matt. 19:21-22)? Is it not because those were beggars, and this one had “great wealth,” that those had nothing but God, and this one had “treasures on earth”?
Every person has his own treasures on earth – be it money or things, a good job or well-being in life. And the Lord says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 4:3). In the ancient copies of the Gospel of Luke it is even simpler and more direct: “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Blessed are those who have felt that they have nothing in this life, even if they possess much, who have felt that no earthly acquisition can replace God for a person. Blessed are those who go and sell all their wealth in order to acquire one precious pearl – faith (Matthew 13:45-46). Blessed are those who have realized that without God they are poor, who have thirsted and hungered for Him with all their soul, all their mind and will.
The word about faith has never been easy to perceive. But nowadays people are so absorbed in the problems of earthly existence that many simply have no time to hear this word and think about God. Sometimes religiosity is reduced to celebrating Christmas and Easter and observing some other rituals just for the sake of “not being torn away from the roots”, from national traditions. Somewhere religion suddenly becomes “fashionable”, and people go to church to keep up with their neighbors. But the main thing for many is business life, work. “Business people” are a special generation of people of the 20th century, for whom nothing exists except their own function in some “business”, a business that absorbs them completely and does not leave the slightest gap or pause necessary to hear the voice of God.
And yet, paradoxically, amidst the noise and whirlwind of affairs, events, impressions, people hear in their hearts the mysterious call of God. This call may not always be identified with the idea of the Deity and is often subjectively perceived simply as some kind of dissatisfaction, inner anxiety, a search. And only years later does a person realize that his entire previous life was so incomplete and flawed because there was no God in it, without Whom there is not and cannot be the fullness of being. “You created us for Yourself,” says Blessed Augustine, “and our heart languishes restlessly until it finds peace in You.” The call of God can be likened to an arrow with which God, like an experienced hunter, wounds the soul of a person. A bleeding and unhealing wound makes the soul, forgetting about everything, seek a doctor.
The soul of the one who has felt the call becomes possessed by a fervent attraction to God. “And the thoughts of such a soul,” writes St. Macarius of Egypt, “burn with spiritual love and an irresistible craving for ever more glorious and bright beauties of the spirit, languish with irresistible love for the heavenly Bridegroom and … strive for the most exalted and greatest, which can no longer be expressed in words, nor comprehended by the human mind … Through great labors, efforts, long asceticism and perfect struggle … such souls are always delighted with heavenly spiritual mysteries and are carried away by the diversity of God’s beauty, in great thirst seeking the best and greatest. For in the Divine Spirit is contained a diverse and inexhaustible, inexpressible and unimaginable beauty, revealing itself to worthy souls for joy and pleasure and life and consolation, so that a pure soul, languishing every hour with the strongest and most ardent love for the heavenly Bridegroom, never again looks back at the earthly, but is “I am completely consumed by attraction to Him.”
(Abbot Hilarion (Alfeyev). “The Sacrament of Faith. Introduction to Orthodox Dogmatic Theology”)
Link to the full edition: The Sacrament of Faith. Introduction to Orthodox Dogmatic Theology
