“Holiness, indeed, is the impossible. It is the impossible that God demands of man,” Protosyncellus Arsenie Irimiea, the abbot of Darvari Skete Monastery in Bucharest, told the faithful on the Sunday of All Saints.
Yet, most often, we “offer God mere theatre,” he cautioned.
In this regard, the abbot recalled that God tells the Israelites in Leviticus that their sacrifices disgust Him. “So much effort, so much ascetic struggle that, in truth, exhausts you and leads you nowhere! Has this ever happened to you? To be in the Church, or on the path, and yet you reach burnout.”
What is the Cross and How Do We Bear It?
Protosyncellus Arsenie Irimiea explained how the impossible becomes possible: “The saints became holy and were inscribed in the calendar because they resolved, against all evidence, to look to the Lord more than to the constructs of their own minds. This is the key by which man is set free and can escape all the deeds and passions that have robbed him of his freedom.”
“Holiness, in plain words, is this: Lord, against all evidence and against myself, I choose to follow Your lead.”
Continuing, the abbot defined holiness as he learned from a saintly elder: “Elder Arsenie Papacioc used to say that holiness means bearing one’s cross,” and “the cross means enduring what you do not like or accepting what is inconvenient.”
“The less you rebel against the unknown that God places before you, the freer you become,” Father Arsenie Irimiea explained.
“The daily cross is the choice to struggle with purpose, to respond with love, and not to repay evil with evil. This leads to a holy realism.”
The Paradox of the Cross: Entering a Logic Beyond You
Protosyncellus Arsenie Irimiea highlighted the paradox of the cross: “When life spirals out of control, when everything seems to collapse, when you’ve been alone for so long and don’t know why, when things no longer make sense, you are on the right path, the true path: you enter a logic that surpasses you.”
“If I cannot awaken from my own constructs and step off the stage where I play theatre, how else can I do it? My weakness—because I see that I am powerless and cannot be holy—brings me to the spiritual impostor complex.”
The abbot continued that one can stop playing theatre by doing two things: “First, strive not to compare yourself unhealthily with others or with the assumptions in your mind. Second, when you fall, do not dramatise it or remain down.”
“The moment you fall, nothing helps but to rise up, turn back, and say: Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner! Lord, even from hell, I will call You Father!”
“This is the cross—to bear what you do not like: to carry a repentance that does not satisfy you,” continued Abbot Arsenie Irimiea.
“To begin to live, you must step off the stage. But to abandon the theatre is martyrdom! You are already a martyr because you accept to live the life you have, in the state you are in, yet before God.”
You Are Sanctified by Showing Yourself as You Are
“You stand before the Lord and say: Lord, I trust in myself more. Lord, I’ve come to tell You I cannot do what You ask of me. Lord, I must be fully convinced of myself before I look to You.”
“Present yourself thus before God and listen to the silence with which He hears and bears with you. Then you will realise that all these things that harm us have a foundation. That foundation is called pride,” added the abbot of Darvari.
“You are sanctified by showing yourself to God as you are. When you do this, two things happen. First, you escape the idolatry of performance. ‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden,’ says the Father, ‘and I will give you rest.’ If I am performance-driven, I do not qualify!”
“Abandon the idolatry of performance!” Protosyncellus Arsenie Irimiea urged the faithful. “What do you do? You idolise your own efforts and constantly whip yourself with ambition.”
Yet, “the more a person becomes aware of the inner light, the more grace comes. For this is the only way I can humble myself. And, beloved faithful, may God conclude and seal it in your hearts! Amen,” the abbot concluded.
The Darvari Skete Monastery in Bucharest holds one of Romania’s oldest copies of the Prodromitissa Icon of the Mother of God. In the Chapel of the Holy Healers, fragments of the relics of St. Silouan the Athonite, St. Matrona the Blind, and St. Nikephoros the Leper are kept.
Photo: Basilica.ro Files / Raluca Ene
