Zacharou’s words burn in my chest tonight. “This is the ethos of Christ: to receive everything from the hands of the Father.” Not from men, not from institutions, not even from one’s own reasoning, but from the Father alone. If this is His hand, then even the wound it leaves must be a sign of His mercy. The heart must learn to bow before what it cannot comprehend.
I had wanted to understand. I had wanted reasons, explanations, perhaps even justice. Yet Zacharou reminds me that heavenly justice is nailed to the Cross. To defend oneself, to seek vindication, is to return to the logic of the world; to the restless, anxious movement of the ego. Obedience, by contrast, is silence before mystery. It is the stillness that trusts the Father’s will even when it seems to bury everything one has loved.
My thoughts wander toward what could have been, but imagination belongs to the created world. Grace belongs to the uncreated. To reach that grace, imagination must be burned away in the furnace of humility. The heart must be purified until it sees only the face of the Father in every event, and not the hands of those who wound or fail.
So tonight, I place everything upon the altar of silence. The ache, the confusion, the fear; all must pass through the fire. The path forward is not in words or plans or defense, but in dying daily. To drink the cup that is given, not looking to see who offers it, but trusting that it comes from the Father’s love.
The cell feels colder, but the silence is alive. Beneath it flickers a faint warmth, the furnace within the chest. If I can keep that flame alive, even faintly, then perhaps I will learn what it means to belong wholly to Him.
Lord, teach me to stop resisting the Cross You have chosen. Teach me to love Your will until it becomes my own.
Reflection based upon the writing of
Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou
Perfect Surrendering to the Spirit of Salvation pp. 27-29
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