2004 Fall.Vol25.#3.pdf - Coptic Church Review

THE TEACHINGS OF ABBA PHILEMON 93
is the same as the body of the Lord. Both come form the same source and both
have life. The word of God nourishes the inner life as the body of Christ. The
first is always available but the second is given in the liturgy to bring us together
and unite us. If you start to contrast them you will loose seeing what they have
in common’.
If you receive His word you receive His body and if you receive His body
you receive His word. Tell me what is the difference between word and body?
Both are of the same substance, one is visible and the other is not. The invisible
becomes visible through the body and the visible becomes invisible through the
word (our body and our intentions are hidden in our words). We need both, for
our life will not be transformed unless our body becomes a word and our word
becomes a body.
Limits for divine Love
Once I asked Abba Philemon are there any limits for the divine love? He
said, ‘no limits at all but we can limit it for ourselves when we resist it because
God does not force himself on us. He always waits for us to open the door for
him but he always knocks because he does not loose hope like us
He made the sign of the cross over the sand as we walking in the desert and
said walk over it. I said I couldn’t walk over the cross. He smiled and said, ‘sin
and evil make us think that our hands are more pure than our feet. Do not forget
that the feet of Christ were nailed on the cross to give us victory. Christ upholds
every thing by his power and he carries you and wee say that He will subdue the
devil under our feet. Walking on the cross is an act of purification from your ritualistic
mind, which thinks that we can defile what is holy but in reality what is
holy is more powerful than our sinful nature and we can defile only our minds
but what is holy, remains always holy
Words of Spiritual Wisdom
My brother do not think that we shall live forever, because immortality
belongs only to God. It is not in our nature to be immortal but it is God’s grace
in Christ. Thus we believe in the resurrection of Jesus as the message of our
immortality and those who speak of the resurrection of the body as the only
blessing which we have received from Christ, do not know that it is by his resurrection
that we are the eternal children of God.
The Logos (Word) of the Father became human in order that our human
understanding of the Father be sanctified in him. In Christ the human and the
divine are made one Person so that our life may be both human and divine
through the grace of God in Christ.