By Saint Nectarios of Pentapoleos
The unbeliever is the most unfortunate person among men because he is denied the single most precious thing in this world, faith, which is the only true guide toward truth and good fortune. The unbeliever is so unfortunate because he has been denied hope, the only constant support on the long road of life. The unbeliever is very unfortunate because he is missing the true love of people which surround his troubled heart. The unbeliever is most unfortunate since he is being denied divine beauty and the divine likeness of the Creator. This is the beauty that the Divine Artist has engraved in our hearts and which our faith has revealed to us.
The eye of an unbeliever does not see anything else in
creation but the forces of nature. The
brilliant icon of the Holy Creator and its marvelous beauty for him remain
hidden and unknown to him. His vision is
out of focus in the immensity of creation.
He does not see the beauty of creation anywhere. He does not find the
beauty of God’s wisdom. He does not
marvel at the great power of God. He
does not discover the goodness of God; divine providence, justice and the love
of the Creator toward creation. His mind
cannot go beyond the physical world.
Neither can he go beyond the realm of his senses. His heart remains insensitive before the
image of divine wisdom and power. Being
like this does not give birth to any feelings of worship. His lips remain
sealed. His mouth is motionless. His tongue is wearisome. Wearisome is his
turmoil. His turmoil is pain and his pain is despair. All things until now that
attracted his attention have lost their grace.
This is so because all the joys of life that he experienced are unable
to make him happy.
As long as the heart of man has been created so that God
can dwell in it, the ultimate joy of man revels and rejoices in this goodness
because this is found only in God. But
from the heart of an unbeliever, God has departed. The human heart has limitless yearnings since
it was created to contain and seek out the unlimited. As long as the heart of
the unbeliever is no longer filled with the infinite God, everything around him
groans with despair. He seeks and desires after things but nothing satisfies
him. And this is so because all the
pleasures of life are powerless to fulfill the emptiness of the human heart.
When the true pleasures and activities of the world are
turned off, the heart is left with a feeling of bitterness. The vain glories of the world are turned into
grief. The unbeliever ignores that the
happiness of man is not found by indulging in worldly pleasures but are found
in the love of God, which is infinite and eternal good. It is here where we find the misfortune of
those who ignore God. He who denies God
is like that person who denies his happiness and its unending blessedness. The unfortunate one struggles with the
toilsome battles of life without the presence of God.
And so, in despair and fear nestled in his heart, the
unbeliever walks to his already opened grave.
The miraculous work that unfolds before his eyes is played out on the
world stage and is directed by divine wisdom, grace and power. All these things
pass by him completely unnoticed. These
things play a principal role in ones’ life with the assistance of harmony and
divine goodness. Although the sweet water of the river of joy and happiness
flows by his feet, he is unable in his disbelief to quench the dryness of his
tongue. It is a thirst that burns him because the running water from the
gurgling well is unshaken because his voice cannot be heard coming out of his
chest, singing praises; glorifying and thanking God.
The joy that is unfurled in the universe has forsaken the
heart of the unbeliever because God has distanced Himself from it. The emptiness has been filled with sorrow. It
remains obstinate because of the absence of a desire to seek the spiritual has
overwhelmed his soul. He is misled in
this dark night without any light, a night where no beam of light enlightens
his darkened avenues. There is no one to
direct and guide his steps. In the race of life he is alone. He navigates life without the hope of a
better life. He walks among many traps
and there is no one to free him from them. He falls into these traps and is
burdened by the weight of them. There is
no one to relieve him of his sorrow.
The peace of the soul and the quietness of the heart have
been banished by disbelief. Grief has bound up the depths of his heart. The joy which a believer finds in fulfilling
the holy commandments and the joy that comes from a moral life is for the
unbeliever unknown. Joy that comes from
faith has never visited the heart of the unbeliever. The conviction which flows from faith in
divine providence and which lighten the struggles of life is an unknown power
to the unbeliever.
The feeling of thanksgiving and favor that comes from
love is a great mystery to the unbeliever.
The disbeliever who places material things first has limited true
happiness for himself in a very limited circle of fleeting enjoyment. This is so because he is always attempting to
satisfy himself with material things. The
desire for virtue is for him completely foreign. He has not tasted the sweetness of this
grace. The disbeliever has overlooked that which is the source of true joy and
he is rushing without realizing it, toward the source of bitterness. Indulgence filled his worldly desires and in fulfilling
them has only brought him nothing but emptiness. This emptiness brought faith but then slipped
away and fell from his lips.
Oh, unfortunate slave of a difficult tyrant! How did they steal the
joy of life from you? How did they rip away from you this profound
treasure? You lost your faith. You denied your God. You
denied His revelation to you and then you threw away the bountiful gift
of
divine grace. How unfortunate is the
life of such a person! This life is
filled with a whole host of troubles for the unbeliever because the
delight of
life has lost its flavor before his very eyes.
Nature around him appears sterile and infertile because it does not fill
him with any sense of joy and delight. He does not rejoice in any of the
creations of God. A veil of grief
envelopes all of nature and it no longer attracts a sense of fascination
for
him. His life has become an impossible burden and with the passing of
time
appears to him to be an unbearable hardship.
This is why despair appears before him like an
executioner and terrible torturer. It
terrorizes the unfortunate man. His
courage has already abandoned him. His resistance is weakened and his moral
moorings have since been corrupted by lack of faith. He appears like a man who is motivated completely
by something else, that is disbelief. He
has surrendered his life to the fearful shackles of despair which are devoid of
mercy and sympathy. The thread of his
life is forcefully and cruelly cut off from the gifts of God and is hurled to
the depths of perdition, to the darkness of hell from where he can only be
saved when he is called by the voice of his Divine Creator. This is the Creator that he has denied all
his life and now he must give account for his disbelief. Then he will be judged and will be sent to
the eternal fire.
TRANSLATED by:
+Fr. Constantine J.
Simones from the Greek on June 3, 2012, the Feast of the Holy Spirit in the
Orthodox Christian Church calendar.
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