Metropolitan Kirill: “Only that person can be really religious who has experienced a personal encounter with God”

METROPOLITAN KIRILL: “ONLY THAT PERSON CAN BE REALLY RELIGIOUS WHO HAS EXPERIENCED A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER WITH GOD”

On February 15, the Feast of the Meeting of our Lord Jesus Christ, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, assisted by Bishop Mercury of Zaraisk, administrator of the Pastriarchal Parishes in the USA, and the DECR staff in holy orders, celebrated the divine liturgy at the church of the Life-giving Trinity at Khoroshevo, Moscow.

Addressing the congregation with a word of greeting and blessing on the occasion, Metropolitan Kirill emphasized that only that person can be really religious who experienced a personal encounter with God. Without such an encounter, even if he observes every canon and rule, he remains just a performer of church devotional traditions.

“Of course, not every one of us is given to encounter God in the way that Moses encountered Him at the unburning bush. Not everyone is given to see God as Abraham saw Him under the oak of Mamre. Not everyone is given to see God as the Most Holy Mother, Simeon the God-receiver, Ann the Prophetess and after them the apostles, the myrrh-bearing women and all those who followed Him saw Him. Then what does an encounter with God mean for us?” he asked.

“God has not only given us His presence in history through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has given us His presence in our life through His Word, through His thoughts, through His teaching. When we read the Gospel, when we read the words uttered by the Lord, we encounter the divine thought, idea and teaching. And when we see these ideas, thoughts and words realized in our life, we really encounter the Lord. Therefore, our meeting with bright and holy people who live according to God’s commandments is, as it were, our encounter with God, with Divine truths embodied in these people.

“When we meet what is beautiful and harmonious in the world, what is a result of God’s design for the world and human beings, we also meet God. When we see the beauty of our nature or the magnificence of human creative idea born to life either in fine arts or music or literature or architecture, we also meet God. For God is the source of harmony and beauty. For without God a human being would never be capable of creativity and ability to create the harmonious and beautiful in this world.

“Every time when we meet the Word of God, when we meet people preach it not only by word but also their life, when we meet the beautiful in this world, when we see the truth of God defeating the devil’s falsehood, when we meet justice, when we meet the world, we meet God Who has implanted all this in human beings.

“But it is fearsome when our eyes are closed, when we see and understand nothing, when we do not see God standing next to us, when we deify ourselves and put ourselves in the center of our life. Then we close for ourselves every opportunity for meeting the Lord and every opportunity for living according to the laws of faith.

“Why did no one of the servants of the Temple see things clearly when they met the Divine Infant Christ? It was only Simon the God-receiver who saw things clearly. Why only he? Because he prepared himself for this encounter.

If we prepare ourselves for an encounter with the Lord by softening our hearts, educating our reason by the Word of God and elevating our feelings, then an encounter with God will always make our hearts beat joyfully, our eyes pour tears of adoration and our souls go through a profound spiritual experience. And nobody will be able to deceive us and to make us change our mind.

Just as nobody can shake our faith in the fact that when we come to the Holy Cup with repentance, we really meet the Lord and accept His Holy Body and His Holy Blood.

And our faith is based on this joyful experience of encounter with God. Then we do not need any additional logical arguments, for we have a proof of the real presence of God in our life, having experienced with joy and trepidation a contact with Him in our faith and hope.

May today’s feast open our eyes to the world, to the reality around us and to ourselves and help us to see God in our life and in human history. Amen