Saturday, May 5, 2012

A few more quotes from Fr Alexander Men on the Resurrection



The Alexander Men memorial cross in Semkhoz near Sergiev Posad, 
60 km north-west of Moscow 

Here are some more quotes from Father Alexander Men on the Resurrection of Christ, this time from the blog of Father Christopher Foley, Holy Cross Orthodox Church, High Point, North Carolina USA: 

“From the very outset, the coming of Christ represents the fulfillment of hope. From the very beginning the Gospel story means victory arising out of catastrophe. Disappointment, defeat , despair, confusion - and all of a sudden, an unexpected display of the miraculous power of God.” 

“If you want to find something real in Christianity, then search for it only through the risen Christ . . . the Resurrection means victory. It means that God entered our human struggle, the great struggle of spirit against darkness, evil, oppression. He who was rejected, condemned, killed, humiliated, somehow focused all the misfortunes of the world in himself and triumphed over all of them.” 

“. . . the Resurrection is not something that occurred once upon a time proving Christ’s victory to the disciples, something which had its place two thousand years ago. The encounters continued to happen, they always happened . . . Here lies the meaning of the Resurrection, today’s meaning, for this time, not for history, not for the past, but for this day . . . He acts today regardless of human weaknesses. He will triumph always: and he has only begun his work, only begun, because his aim is the transfiguration of the world, the Kingdom of God. We need only to anticipate this, to feel its coming.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And this one, the final words of Father Men’s last lecture, 8th September 1990, the night before his assassination, at the opening of the Alexander Men Open University: 

“. . . the essence of Christianity is found in God-manhood, or the joining of the organic and temporal human spirit with that of the Eternal and Divine. It is found in the sanctification of the flesh, for the world and nature, which is the birthplace of the Son of Man as both man and God-man, was not cast away or degraded, but elevated to a new level and sanctified ever since the Son of Man took upon himself our joys and sufferings, our creation our love and labour. 

“In Christianity the world is sanctified, while evil, sin and death are conquered. But the victory is God’s. It began on Resurrection morning and will continue as long as the world remains.”


0 comments:

Post a Comment