BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

Fr Luke A Veronis

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

In stillness, in serenity and in the quiet of our heart we can experience God. The world bombards us with never-ending noise, distraction, confusion. Society is full of words, many words that are often silly, senseless, and with little meaning or inspiration. To enter the presence of God, we must get comfortable with a deep silence and solitude. We need to enter into the physical stillness of creating a quiet space, and then move beyond physical silence into the more difficult stillness and serenity of our heart. Of course, this inner stillness of heart is much harder to accomplish than simply creating an outer atmosphere of quiet.

Be still and know that I am God.

The average American is on their I-phones 4 hours 30 minutes per day, which means we spend six entire days per month, or 70 days per year on our phone!

53% of Americans are so busy working that they don’t use all their vacation days each year.

The average American spends 5 hours per day on recreation, sport, and watching TV.

If the devil can’t make you sin, he will make you busy. He will fill up your day. He will keep the noise level up so that you can’t hear the soft knock of Jesus knocking on your heart. 

Be still and know that I am God.

“The human being has received his vocation,” St Gregory the Theologian says, “and that vocation is to be still with God.” St. John Climacus agrees, “The friend of stillness draws near to God.” The quieter in our hearts we become, the more we will hear the voice of God.

I remember one of the greatest lessons of life I learned as a teenager from Camp Nazareth, the summer Camp of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which I still practice today, is the importance of a keeping a daily Quiet Time. Just like at our Metropolis of Boston Camp, where they call it Alone Time with God, we would say our morning prayers and then sit by ourselves for 15 minutes in silence, praying, reflecting, thinking, listening. And during that time as a teenager, I felt the presence of God. I remember so distinctly feeling like I was tasting the Kingdom of Heaven.

Be still and know that I am God.

I’m emphasizing this theme today on the Second Sunday of our Great Lenten journey because silence and stillness play a central role in what these 40 days of the holy season are all about. The Church asks us to slow down, to adjust our busy schedules, and to create time to just sit with the Lord and listen.

There is a story of an old man who would go into his village church every day and just sit. The priest noticed that every day he came at the same time and would sit for an hour and then get up and leave. Day after day. Finally, the priest asked the old man, “What do you do each day when you come in and sit there?” The man replied, “I just sit and look at Him. And He looks at me. And I’m happy. I feel His love and feel His Presence and I’m content.”

Be still and know that I am God.

On this Second Sunday of Lent we remember St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki and one of the great Fathers of the Church. He was the champion and defender of the monastic tradition of hesychasm (which comes from the Greek word isucia, meaning silence, serenity, quietude). The Athonite monastic tradition practiced and believed that one could experience the Living God through His divine energies by the grace of God coming upon us through silence and prayer.

The primary prayer of the heart is the Jesus Prayer – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.” The monastics would find a place of solitude, sit in silence, repeating the Jesus prayer over and over again. Hundreds of times. Thousands of times each day. In silence, they simply repeated the name of Jesus and waited for the Holy Spirit to open their hearts and fill it with His divine grace.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.

Be still and know that I am God.

One of the great opponents of St. Gregory in the 14^th century was another monk, Barlaam from Calabria, who came from a monastery in Southern Italy. He was a learned monastic deeply influenced by the Western tradition which, taught that we come to know God through knowledge, letters, philosophy. In other words, through the intellect. St. Gregory disagreed. He represented the Athonite monastic tradition which says our encounter with God goes far beyond intellectualism. We can’t know God simply through the mind but we must enter into the heart. And we can only do this by purifying our heart with unceasing prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.

Through hesychastic prayer - silence and prayer - the Holy Spirit comes alive and fills our inner self with unspeakable joy and beauty. Although the essence of God is unknowable and inaccessible to human beings, St. Gregory declared, “His divine energies are accessible for us to experience through the prayer of the heart.”

St. Nikephoros the Patriarch concurred: “Enter into the place of the heart (in prayer) and through God’s grace you will learn things which in no other way will you ever learn.”

Be still and know that I am God.

Thus, our challenge during this Lenten season is for us to be still, to create solitude and quiet in our surrounding environment, but then most importantly, to sit in stillness, quieting the inner noise of our heart. Each day, let us set aside a certain amount of time to dwell in the Presence of God – looking at Him, and letting Him look at us as we continually repeat the Jesus Prayer – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.

Be still and know that I am God.