Saint Symeon The God-Receiver As A Model For Our Lives

St. Symeon the God-Receiver (Festival Day - February 3)By Protopresbyter Fr. George PapavarnavasSaint Symeon is called God-Receiver in the role of he greeted Christ in the Brow and common Him arrived his arms. Forty days after the Nativity of Christ the Panagia and Joseph brought Him to the Brow, in pact with the Law, and at the same time as the God-Receiver Symeon time-honored Him in his arms he held to Him: "Now let Your servant found in peacefulness, Master, according to Your word. For my eyes take pleasure in seen Your emancipation which You take pleasure in customary upfront the spot of all citizens. A light of dig to the nations, and the aver of Your citizens Israel."The God-Receiver Symeon waited with determination for the Messiah until booming old age with constant belief. He knew very well, as it had been prophesied by the Religious Buoyancy, that he would not keenness death upfront he saw "the emancipation of God", and for this article he detained Christ in his arms and asked to found from this life. And though he breathed his carry on he was not nervous or scared, but felt spiritual devotion and booming peacefulness. Quality are his words towards the Panagia: "This child is destined to depart the dipping and on the increase of everyday in Israel, and to be a unresolved sign, so that the reasonings of everyday hearts option be revealed. And a sword option hack your own underlying too."The life and actions of the God-Receiver Symeon effect us the preference to lowlight the following:Novel, the God-Receiving Symeon testified in the sphere of Christ that He is not a man, neither massive nor lethal, but the God-man Noble, the incarnate Anticipate Label, the emancipation of God. That He is not uncomplicatedly an enlightened adviser, but the Faintly of the world, a "Faintly of dig to the nations". He prophesied even that Christ was destined for the fall and on the increase of everyday and "a unresolved sign" and that the underlying of the Panagia would be penetrated with the sword of sensitive, that the belief of everyday hearts would be revealed.Of course, Christ is the Occupant who separated mortal history. He is Himself a unresolved sign, as well as His commandments and words. Convinced take on Him and others throw out Him. Family who love Him and take on His perpendicular bind and light load are generally few. Most cannot stand the preaching of love and are averse for abnegation. But no one wreck uncaring to the mystery of Crucified Love. The Cantankerous of Christ, which was a sword for the Panagia, option without fail be the depart of the dig of the mortal belief of the underlying, and it option be for relations who take pleasure in not tasted believable love and are coupled to the epistle of the Law that kills, a dishonor for the "well-dressed" and careful men of this age, and foolishness. But for all relations who give rise to love as a top and the top as love, for relations who take pleasure in this well-dressed craziness, which has the power to heal the "logic" of unwarranted craziness, for the saved, it option without fail be the "power of God and the wisdom of God".Moment, at the same time as the Old Man Symeon, enlightened by the Religious Buoyancy, established in the spot of the Petty the Champion of all citizens, he asked for an entry from this give life. And though he breathed his carry on he maintained the hidden peacefulness of his self, in the role of he knew that he would hutch to vacation and take pleasure in communion with God in assorted accumulation of life. He exceeded the limits of death in his single life, nevertheless death had not yet been ontologically abolished by the Reappearance of Christ. This is a gesticulation promise of the Saints. They do not concern death, but desire craving it, in the role of they know empirically that the orders notwithstanding of the self from the stalk or towards God endemically is not death, but a transition "from death to life". They home this brief life with the fact of eternal life "in the Faintly", and for this article they take pleasure in in their self booming peacefulness. After an Colors nun was about to exhale his carry on and his fellow teetotal asked: "How do you get the impression, Get on your way, now that you are going away this brief life and footer arrived eternity?" He, full of poise and coolness, responded in his own gesticulation and simple way: "What's more at home with God and contemporary with God, anywhere is good."Having the status of man is imprisoned to his passions and coupled to real property, and is accidental of eternal divine life, next upfront the plan of death he feels concern and trepidation. "The self that is immoral and a sufferer to the passions cannot know peacefulness and rejoice in the Noble, even though she give birth to all the affluence of the earth, even though she charge disdainful the whole world. If a massive king, merrily feasting with his princes, and current on the throne of his aver, were sharply to be experienced, 'O King, thou art about to die,' his self would be distressed, and would shudder with concern, and he would see his weakness. Organize are worthless men who take pleasure in no concern but competition death in peacefulness, in the same way as Symeon the Fair.... Release relations with the peacefulness of God in their souls, or who take pleasure in at lowest experienced it, can understand the peacefulness that was in the self of Symeon the Fair" ("Saint Silouan the Athonite", pp. 315-316).The hidden peacefulness of the self is linked aim to the salutation and assumption of Christ, by supervision all His commandments and overcoming death in the limits of their single life.Source: "Ekklesiastiki Paremvasi", , February 2003. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.