Chapter Ten.

The Inner Tradition: The Treasure of Holy Fire.

        Life is a journey with many stages from birth to death. As the journey progresses new challenges arise. Significant decisions must be made. When we are young, we usually ask: What kind of friends do I really want to have? What goals should I pursue? Later, other questions come up. What kind of job or profession should I seek? Whom will I marry? By what principles and values shall I live? Finally, the deeper issues confront us. Who am I? What is life all about? Am I living or merely existing?

        For Orthodox Christians the highest goal of human existence is life with God. Jesus said: “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and to lose one’s soul? What can a person give in exchange of one’s soul” (Mk 8:36-37)? The word “soul” (psyche) in Jesus’ statement is often translated as “life” following the Jewish word behind it (nephesh) which means the living principle or life. Essentially the two words are co-equal because each person’s unique gift of life is his or her soul — one’s personal being and existence. Nothing is more precious than a person’s soul. No goal, no pursuit, no value, no achievement is higher than the fulfillment of one’s life in Christ and the attainment of one’s eternal salvation.

        Among the Desert Fathers, the ancient monastics in the Egyptian wilderness who led a life of prayer, a story is told about an elder giving instruction on the spiritual life. Enthused by the talk, one of his disciples asked a question: “Abba, how far can one grow in the life with God?” The elder raised his hand toward heaven and suddenly his whole arm became like a flaming torch. He turned to his disciple and said: “If you want, if you truly desire it, you can become all fire!”

        Christ has been called a “fire-starter.” He came “to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Mt. 3:11; Lk 3:16). He once said: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled” (Lk 12:29). On the day of Pentecost, the fullest moment of divine revelation, the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus’ followers. Divine grace came to rest on them like “tongues of fire” (Acts 2:3). Christianity began as a spiritual movement through baptism by divine fire.

        What is the Orthodox way of life? How can we live it with full awareness? Preeminent theologians of the past, such as Vladimir Lossky, have taught us that the essence of the Orthodox Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Authentic Orthodoxy, not as an abstraction but as reality, is not merely a religion of rituals, rules and regulations, but the personal self-disclosure of the living God, His self-giving to us in love. Orthodoxy is the treasure of the holy presence and transforming power of the Holy Trinity dwelling among God’s people who are His holy temple. As God has promised, “I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people” (2 Cor. 6:16; cf. Lev. 26:11-12). To live an Orthodox way of life is to be part of a burning bush glowing with all the blessings that flow from God, His love, mercy, truth, righteousness, freedom, light, life and joy. Orthodoxy in its essence is the gift of “holy fire,” the inner, dynamic and transforming Tradition.

        Do you want to be an Orthodox Christian with full awareness? When your parents, the priest and many friends and parishioners baptized you, they chanted the baptismal hymn, “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ, you have put on Christ” (cf. Gal. 3:29). At each Liturgy, you hear and receive the priest’s blessing, “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (cf. 2 Cor.13:13). In the Communion Prayers you recite, you pray, “It is good for me to cling to my God and to place in Him the hope of my salvation.” If you want to be an Orthodox Christian with full awareness, be what you are! If you truly desire the gift and seek it earnestly, as the ancient elder said, you can become all fire by the grace of the Spirit.

        Of course the task is difficult and the way is narrow because we must wage war against our unredeemed self, the power of sin, and the idols of the world. We also have to face obligations, trials, sickness, and other hardships. Saint Paul himself well knew of the way of the cross when he wrote: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8). We struggle with the forces of life and death. In Saint Paul’s words we carry the treasure of holy fire in “earthen vessels,” our fragile human nature, showing that the sustaining power comes not from us but from God. God is the One who shines within our hearts the light of the glory of Christ. “Therefore we do not lose heart: although our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day” (2 Cor. 4:16). When we speak of renewal in the Church, this is the primary renewal we have in view: the renewal of our minds and hearts in Christ, the full recovery of holy fire in our daily lives, the spiritual renewal of the community shining with the radiance of God.