The reading is from the gospel according to St. Mark 2:1-12
Today I would like to briefly explore the connection between St. Gregory Palamas and the second Sunday of Great Lent. First we must take a look at the gospel story of the paralyzed man. As Our Lord Christ encounters him He does something that was considered quite blasphemous at the time. He tells the man that his sins are forgiven. After a great degree of resistance from the on-lookers Our Lord asks “which is easier to say to the paralytic, “your sins are forgiven you” or to say “rise take up your bed and walk?”
I would submit that this is the connection to the great saint Gregory Palamas who lived almost 700 yrs ago. Gregory Palamas became archbishop of the great city of Thessaloniki (we know that St. Paul wrote at least two letters to the Christian community in that city some 650 years before Palamas). In fact, you can travel to Greece and visit the cathedral dedicated to him, and venerate his body which is in a side chapel of the church. This Gregory Palamas was called “the cause of all disorders and disturbances in the Church.” Now imagine that he was called “the cause of all disorders and disturbances in the Church” by the Patriarch of Constantinople himself. The year is 1344. This comment was made during a Church council and it caused this man to be thrown into prison for the next 4 years. Yet the Church in her wisdom has set aside this the second Sunday of Great Lent as Palamas Sunday.
Palamas understood through faithful practice that the body and soul must be saved together or they will perish together and he taught this quite publicly as bishop of the city of Thessaloníki. Among the spiritual practices taught by St. Gregory was the practice he learned from other monks called “stillness of the heart”, better known as hesychia or hesychasm. Stillness of the heart is the practice of quieting yourself to such a degree that you can finally come to hear the voice of God clearly in your heart as the psalmist writes “Be still and know that I am God.”
This teaching was not endorsed by all of the leaders or teachers of the Church. In fact, I might go so far as to say that most Christian denominations still do not believe this teaching or it’s consequences. Many western Christians look at growing in their faith as a matter of intellectual growth, but Palamas, learning from the fathers, saw growth as requiring purification of the body in order to open a relationship with the Holy Spirit. We are walled off from God through our sins and passions, and the ascetical disciplines and the practice of prayerful stillness, renew us to receive gifts and treasures from God. Christ our God forgives us, but somehow we are still left with residue and scars from our sins and the filth of our souls. So these practices help us to be cleansed and to hasten our healing. We are open to synergy with the Holy Spirit.
“Be still and know that I am God.” Think about how difficult it would be to be still?
We are so easily distracted by so many things from smart phones to computers to television to movies to music that we are filled to the brim. All these not only distract but they add layers around our heart by numbing it and holding it captive. So these things distract our attention and focus elsewhere and they also leave us wanting more.
The truth is that many of us are afraid of quiet time. We must have a radio or TV in the background or we must be talking to someone. Are we afraid of what we will find without these distractions in our lives? Maybe, but we also know that unless you get rid of all the external pacifiers you cannot actually be pacified. We are always looking for a painkiller but we rarely remember that the pain is there to point us to the fact that there is a problem that needs a cure not a cover up. Our problem is that we are sinful and we have rejected God and by chasing and loving everything but God we have created the emptiness that we feel. Yet there is a cure. Our cure is to constantly and diligently seek Jesus Christ through prayer at every moment of the day. We follow this diligent search for the Lord by pursuing Him in the life of the Church which is His body.
St. Gregory defended the idea that he learned from others and put into practice in his own life, namely that through solitude (time alone) as well as constant prayer such as the Jesus Prayer, one could fully begin to hear God and to speak to Him in a meaningful way. By focusing all our attention on God one can actually begin to commune with Him and to even see His glorious light with the faculty of the heart. In fact, our theology and the lived experience of the Orthodox saints tells us that through this path, we actually, truly, really, begin to know God in His energies.
Today is a reminder of the struggles that we face as we are paralyzed by our own sins. It is a reminder that when God heals us, He heals all of us and not just a part. Knowing this each of you must continue to really give God your heart, mind, soul and strength. In this way He will see your heart as usable material that He can sculpt into His next masterpiece. Or a place that He can turn into His glorious temple! I want to leave you with a quote a share nearly every year from St. Gregory Palamas, who writes, “Let not one think, my fellow Christian, that only priests and monks need to pray without ceasing and not laymen. No, no; every Christian without exception ought to dwell always in prayer.” AMEN.
Edited from 2-28-2010
Source: Sermons