Renewing Our Hearts.

        The third and deepest level of Orthodox awareness is the renewal of our hearts. The “heart” in Holy Scripture and the Orthodox Tradition is the deep self, the center of consciousness, the deep mystery of the inner person, which qualifies everything that we are, feel, think, do, see and appear to others. Saint Paul spoke of the new creation in Christ in terms of “God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5). In a stirring passage, he exhorts Christian believers “by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may know what is the will of God” (Rom. 12:1-2). “The renewal of mind” here means something more than intellectual comprehension which, as noted above, is praiseworthy in itself. In Saint Paul “renewal of mind” is equivalent to “renewal of heart” — the deep conversion of the inner self to Christ. It happens when, by the grace of the Spirit, the veil of spiritual insensitivity is removed from the heart and the believer inwardly begins to perceive her or his Lord, “beholding the glory of the Lord [and] being changed from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 4:14-18).

        We have now come to the most crucial issue. The greatest problem of Orthodoxy today is a spiritual problem, as Alexander Schmemann said years ago.^[129] More accurately, it is not the problem of Orthodoxy but the problem of Orthodox Christians. It is the former because it is the latter. It involves all Orthodox Christians, lay people, priests and bishops who, by God’s grace, are called to be energizing bearers of the fire of Orthodoxy. We mouth love and forgiveness, but really do neither very deeply. We glory in the icons and legacy of the saints, but do not fully imitate their example. We point to the magnificent Pantocrator, the All-ruling Christ, in the domes of our Churches, but we are reluctant to place ourselves fully under His rule. We extol our spirituality and parade the teaching about theosis (union with God, divinization), but we have not yet properly repented and many are afraid of the words “spiritual renewal.” We point to the grand fireplace, but where is the fire?

        The question is once again about authenticity, genuineness, integrity, connecting ideals and life, letting heaven touch the earth, bridging the yawning gap between what we preach and what we do, a gap which sometimes appears as wide as the Grand Canyon. The tragedy is that, not only we do not rise to a modest level of lived spirituality, but we may instead be filled with sinful passions, corruption, immorality, hypocrisy, and the odor of spiritual death — all the while, as Saint Chrysostom put it, exhibiting the Church’s empty jewel boxes!

        But again, let us not despair. In the New Testament itself we read about “times of stress” when some false Christians and false Christian leaders were people of “corrupt mind and counterfeit faith,” showing themselves to be “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive . . . holding the form of religion but denying the power of it” (see 2 Tim. 3:1-9). Let us recall once again the example of the prodigal son and let us pray with the words of the Lenten hymn: “I am captive, O Savior, in the depths of sin and I am drowning in the sea of life. But as You brought Jonah out of the belly of the whale, bring me also out of the evil passions and save me.”^[130] Yes, deliverance from the depths of darkness, escape from the belly of the beast, that is what we need. “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).

        Let Saint Symeon the New Theologian give us an illustration of Orthodox life and renewal. An Orthodox Christian, he says, is like an oil lamp (kandili) which consists of the oil, the wick, and the flame. The oil is the whole life of the Christian, one’s prayers, fasting, sacramental participation, and all other good works of piety. The wick is the soul, trimmed, straight and reaching upward to receive the light. The flame is the gift of grace which God alone kindles. All three elements are integral to and work together in the oil lamp. Without the oil of a righteous life, the wick would soon smoulder and die out. Without the wick of the soul yearning for Christ, no amount of good works could receive and sustain the holy flame. The flame of the Holy Spirit, which God alone can give, burns brightly only when the wick is trimmed and soaked with oil. Where the Spirit finds eagerness of soul and abundance of goodness, according to Saint Symeon, the whole lamp of the Christian becomes full of light burning with holy fire.