Fire and Flesh (Midweek Message)

Fire and Flesh

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

November 5, 2014

Great 4^th century Desert Father Abba Lot, one day approached Abba Joseph of Panephysis and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my Little Prayer Office. I fast a little. I pray. I meditate. I live in peace and as far as I can. I purify my thoughts. What else am I to do?” At this, the old man Joseph stood up, stretched his hands towards heaven and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

His point is that all the set disciplines we follow to focus our attention and spiritual energy, all the ordered practices we pursue, all the deeds we accomplish—these can only go so far.  In the words of the frustrated Lot, they remain “little.”  Joseph says that in wholly throwing oneself into God, you become infected with God.  God is light and fire, and so embracing God means bursting into flame.   It is all about not going through the motions only, but giving one’s heart, one’s all. 

George Herbert, in a poem about the priesthood, also used the image of fire for God and contrasted this with our efforts, which he calls “made of clay” and "brittle" rather than “little”:

But thou art fire, sacred and hallow’d fire;

And I but earth and clay: should I presume

To wear thy habit, the severe attire

My slender compositions might consume.

I am both foul and brittle; much unfit                        

To deal in holy Writ.

I start most of my homilies with the prayer “give us hearts of flesh.”   This is not because of some kind of sick crypto-Calvinist belief that our fallen and depraved state requires us to ask God for even basic human feelings.   Far from it:  “hearts of flesh” are exactly the heart God intends in us in creation.  In this prayer, I am praying for all of us, but especially for me.  It is a confession of my need to connect with my feelings in a healthy way, rather than run away from them or stifle them.  Sometimes this can  appear to be as hard for me as breathing under water, given my psychological need to feel in control of my life, and to not show weakness.   Asking God for a heart of flesh is my way of trying to surrender to God, and to start the process of bursting into flame. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+