Dear Brothers and Friends,
�There is an ache in my heart,
for they consider me to be something I am not
I was dubbed �Master,�
which testifies against me.
I was called, �Doctor, teacher.�
I was called by the highest names,
but by my works I earned the worst of these descriptions��
These words belong to St. Gregory of Narek, an Armenian monk, a mystic, who died exactly one thousand and three years ago, and who was already considered a saint by his contemporaries. In the year 2003 Armenians worldwide, Orthodox and Catholic, celebrated his life and witness.
The Seventh Hour of the Armenian Church�s Book of Hours includes two prayers of this mystic monk, whose prayers are considered to be �powerful� by the Armenian believers.
In his celebrated prayer book, St. Gregory of Narek says �I am everyone� What is in everyone, is in me also.� He pictures the emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of human experience in their essential, universal and enduring manifestations. Almost like Job, the mystic poses his questions to God and asks for His mercy to cancel out the traumas of human life. He believes that the human being can reach up to God�s dwelling place � attaining a form of theosis. He believes that essentially every man or woman struggling with himself or herself can overcome his or her own limits and weaknesses, and can realize the potential that rests concealed or suppressed within every human being.
Ludwig Feuerbach claimed, in the 19th century, that alienated and powerless man, by way of what we call religion, projects his own potential perfection on to an ideal, omnipotent deity of his own invention. Eight centuries earlier, amazingly, St. Gregory appears to refute this philosopher, suggesting that man has the ability to reappropriate and to realize the enormous potential with which he was created. According to the mystic, the human capacity for transformation -- to change from an imperfect to a perfect state -- is quite possible. Yes, man is inevitably tainted by a thousand and one sins. He is flawed and prone to evil by his very fallen nature. Yet men and women can imitate the ability of the saints, by the grace of God, to overcome their weaknesses. The saint relentlessly prepares a list of every human weakness and failure, including wars and battles, yet he simultaneously describes the possibility of attaining their opposites, including peace in the personal and social levels. Indeed, the human being is marked with unique qualities:
�God has adorned me with reason:
Made me radiant with breathing
Enriched my mind
Increased my wisdom
Fortified mine intellect
Selected me out of animate beings
Mingled into me an intelligent soul
Bedecked me with a princely existence.�
So Gregory sighs in wonder and gratitude at the infinite goodness and power of God:
In the face of my evil, you are good.
In the face of my total indebtedness, you are forgiving.
In the face of my sinfulness, you are indulgent.
In the face of my darkness, you are light.
In the face of my mortality, you are life.
The mystic takes the words of Saint Paul at their face value: �Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus� (Phil. 4: 4-7).
�Be anxious for nothing� is an admonition that touches the heart of every human being. Anxiety, in the time of Saint Paul, or Saint Gregory of Narek, and today, in our times, is our most common problem. Worry, confusion of mind, pressures of daily life, uncertainty about the future are all forms of anxiety. Indeed, psychologists today are talking about the human capacity of tolerance for uncertainty or ambiguity. Anxiety for Saint Paul and Saint Gregory of Narek, is the most futile, frustrating attempt to bear the burdens of life and especially of the future. The Christian answer to anxiety is confident prayer which issues in �the peace of God which surpasses all understanding�. Saint Paul was in prison and persecuted when he wrote these words. Saint Gregory of Narek was a sick monk persecuted by certain bishops in the hierarchy when he wrote his prayer book. So these men were not offering any easy solution to escape fears, uncertainty about the future, persecution, physical disease or death. They are in effect, talking about the serious business of bringing our lives before God, examining our dependence upon God, placing our lives in God�s hands to be used, remembering and celebrating what God has already done, confessing our needs and dedicating our gifts in service to the Gospel of Peace, commiting ourselves and all that we are to make our common cause God�s Kingdom, not our own kingdom. This way, the opposite of anxiety is peace. This not unconcern. This is not the absence of inner and outward struggle, but God�s peace, the peace that is from Him, giving us hope and confidence, strengthening us to carry on with joy when the burdens are heavy and the pathway rough.
Isn�t it in this sense that Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians in his 2nd Letter: �No wonder we do not lose heart! Though our outward humanity is in decay, yet day by day we are inwardly renewed. Our troubles are slight and short-lived; and their outcome an eternal glory which outweighs them far. Meanwhile our eyes are fixed, not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen: for what is seen passes away; what is unseen is eternal (II. Cor. 4:16-18).
In a similar tone, Saint Gregory of Narek has the overwhelming impulse to speak and to reconnect with God at each step he takes. Here is what he says in the 12th Chapter of his prayer book:
�I long not so much for the gifts
but for the Giver.
I yearn not so much for the glory
But for the Glorified!�
These words are a challenge to all of us who engage in Christian service, be it with magisterial, pastoral or episcopal authority.
And it is these words that I would like to present today as a gift to the participants of this International Meeting �Religions and Cultures in Dialogue for a World of Peace�, from a remote corner on the shores of Lake Van in the East, where the monastery of Narek no longer exists, but where the prayers of the holy monk Gregory continue to echo in the whispers of silence.
Mesrob II