The gift of the seal of the Holy Spirit

Servant of God…

Am I supposed to say something here?

Servant of God…

Oh dude, that’s the Eucharist! Wow, that makes sense for so many people. Wait, father is looking at me. I’m supposed to say something.

Servant of God…

Anything good in me is from God, is of God. And that is how I want it to be because, ultimately, when someone meets me or interacts with me, what would bring me great joy is that they encounter Christ in me. 

Is that not the true purpose of our lives, anyway? What else is life meant for besides becoming more like Christ? Any other path is arbitrary, relative, and pursuing self above anything else. 

When I am kind, that is a grace of God; when I am compassionate, that is a grace of God; when I am merciful, when I am gentle, and most assuredly when I am repentant that is a grace and great gift of God. 

This past Pentecost, in the year of our Lord, June twenty-third, 7532, I was brought into the Orthodoxy Church by the Mystery of Holy Chrismation. A powerful affair to say the least, being sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit on the feast day of His descent on the Apostles and the new Genesis taking place in that upper room in Jerusalem.

The inversion of Babel, where the world is united by God in diverse tongues yet understood, reflects the true spirit of the Church—a reflection of the Heavens, diversified in the multiplicity of Creation.

There is but one Gospel, delivered through a litany of voices, languages, and liturgical forms, mirroring the angelic hosts worshipping our Lord above the firmament.

I was brought into His Holy Church by Chrismation, after the Mystery of Confession.

Our great and venerable father, St. Isaac of Syria, once wrote, “This life has been given you for repentance. Do not waste it on other things.” 

This is what this life is meant for; this is precisely why life is worth living and must be lived. 

It is not simply for the sorrow over our sins like many people imagine when they read repentance, but it is renewal of one’s mind and an entering into understanding. It is a fundamental transformation of our outlook; a new understanding and way of looking at ourselves, others, and God.

The Mystery of Confession may seem archaic, a remnant of the self-flagellating medieval church, but it is far from such imagery. Through this Mystery we are being given medicine for our noetic faculties, healed, and renewed.

The Mystery of Confession is not a work of man, but of God, something that God is doing within us and to us as He bestows His grace and healing upon those who have come not to simply confess their sins like a laundry list, but to offer to God their carnal minds and to be granted a new mind. 

A Christ-centered mind. 

To become a Christ-centered person, to follow the words of the Apostle, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). 

Repentance is a grace, enabling us to see our faults and reality, recognizing how far we are from God and our neighbors. The Mystery of Confession brings us back to ourselves, much like the prodigal son returning to his father’s presence.

And Confession is our being called from the world of darkness, illusion, and fleshly pleasures back to our Father’s House, His Church, this is the very meaning of ἐκκλησία (ekklésia), from which we get the word Church from: to be called out from the world and to God.

We are called to participate in Him through His Mysteries, we are called to bear the fruit of repentance, which is to see others as God sees them, to see ourselves as God sees us, and to know—with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all strength—that God is with us.

He is not only with us, but by the power of His Holy Spirit indwells within us granting us the power to “to put away the old self which belongs to [our] former way of life, since it becomes ever more corrupt after the lusts of deceit. Moreover, [we] are to be renewed in the spirit of [our] mind, and to put on the new self who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Therefore, putting away what is false, speak truth to each other, for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:22-25).  

We are called to be brethren, neighbors, and of one mind with God. We are called to leave behind the falsity of the things of this world, their deceitful promises and fleeting pleasures. To follow the things of this world is to become likened to their image, which is ultimately vacuous. This way of living is blaspheming our very Creator as it destroys the image of God within us, little by little likening our image to the things of this world, to ignorance of Him, and hardening our hearts in understanding. 

You are the very presence of God, little sons and daughters of God the Father, called out of the world and to Him, to become likened to Him, to become united to Him and to become united to each other in Him. 

Church tradition has the catechumen take a Chrismation name upon entering the Church. This name is connected to the saint whose name it is, whose story we resonate with, and who becomes our patron and spiritual father or mother (who will be the subject of another post). We are told to choose a saint based on our own name, if applicable. However, if there is a particular saint that calls to us, that is something to be discussed with one’s priest. If it is blessed, that will be one’s Chrismation name—our new name in Christ, renewed in Him, by Him, and through Him.

The reason I took a name different than my own is because I am interested in capturing the words of the Apostle, for it is not I who love, but Christ in me. To abandon the world thoroughly is to strive toward becoming less self-possessed and self-willed, and to become godlier which is not constrained to simply being morally better than we were before, as the Abbot of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregorios of the Holy Mountain Athos, Archimandrite George said,

“… moral perfection is not enough for man. It is not enough for us simply to become better than before, simply to perform moral deeds. We have as our final aim to unite with holy God Himself. This is the purpose of the creation of the universe. This is what we desire. This is our joy, our happiness, and our fulfillment.

The psyche of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, yearns for God and desires union with Him. No matter how moral, how good man may be, no matter how many good deeds he may perform, if he does not find God, if he does not unite with Him, he finds no rest… Each of us is an image of God, and God is our prototype. The image seeks the prototype, and only when it finds it does it find rest.”

We are not demonstrating the love of God like its donning a virtuous costume, we are embodying the love of God by becoming the love of God. We are demonstrating the powerful Presence of God by becoming united to it here on earth. 

As the Forerunner says,

“He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

That is what the saints embody because the saints are the Christians who have come before who realized this image of God within them and worked with Him to actualize the prototype. They have sought to put to death their old manner of being and be raised in Christ, as living icons of the Creator.

My given name, my government name, means Twin and that is how I have always felt. Caught in between two worlds, being kind or being chaos. Being gentle or being cruel. Awakened or asleep. Choosing God or the things of this world. Choosing the narrow way or the wide road to perdition. 

Who am I today? Who am I tomorrow? Where is the consistency? 

It lies in Christ, Who “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

So, in a desire to lay myself down to be raised with Christ, it seemed right to put off the old man, to embrace a new identity in Christ. We Christians are tasked with denying the self, putting away selfishness and the lusts of the flesh.

The blessed Fr. Nikon wrote to his spiritual child saying, “Life on earth is not given for pleasure, but for acquiring knowledge of oneself and God. During his lifetime a person must firmly and unwaveringly align himself either with good or with evil, with God or the devil. One who seeks God and His truth will find God and a new life—in its conception here on earth, and in its fullness after death” (Fr. Nikon, Letter to Spiritual Children 104). 

The saints remind us that life is worth living when it is focused away from the things of this world and toward God, a life of repentance and seeking His Kingdom. Crucifying the self to become alive in Christ.

The new name, for me, symbolizes crucifying the flesh with its passions and lusts to bear fruits of repentance, the very “fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control” (Ephesians 5:22-23). These are the fruits budding from acquiring knowledge of oneself and God, for the two are intertwined; there is no me without God and without this body and life that is meant for repentance I could not come to know God.

Repentance is the lifelong practice becoming of one soul with God. The new name, putting off the old signals a crucifixion as well as a laying of one’s burdens down before Christ to be unshackled to the things of this world and to put on the yoke of Christ, for it “is easy and [His] burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

Servant of God…

Oh right, my Chrismation name. 

Servant of God… 

The Eucharist is beautiful.

Servant of God…

Nectarios.

Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ