The Man Who Must Hear Before He Speaks

A word not his own, a life not his own

“Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.”

⸻

The elder stands in the midst of the brethren as a man under judgment.

Not because he commands,

but because he must hear.

His authority is not born of rank or knowledge,

but of a heart broken open before God.

If he ceases to listen, he ceases to be an elder.

For his ministry is prophetic,

and the prophet does not speak from himself.

He waits.

He stands before God with the burden of many souls,

and he dares not answer them with his own mind.

He must descend into prayer until a word is given.

And when it is given,

it burns.

It is not strategy.

It is not management.

It is not cleverness.

It is a word that wounds in order to heal,

that exposes in order to save,

that calls a man out of himself and into Christ.

If the elder does not weep,

his word will be empty.

If he does not carry the brethren in his heart,

his authority will become violence.

For the true elder governs nothing.

He suffers everything.

⸻

But the prophecy of the elder cannot live in a resistant soil.

If the brethren stand before him as judges,

weighing his words, measuring his mind,

then the prophetic word is silenced before it is spoken.

The monastery becomes a council of opinions,

and Christ is no longer heard.

The monk must come as one who desires life, not correctness.

Obedience is not submission to a man.

It is the opening of the heart to God through a man.

If he guards his will,

he will remain alone even in the midst of the brotherhood.

If he yields his will,

he will find himself carried into a life not his own.

This is the terror of obedience.

A man places his life into the hands of another,

not because that man is perfect,

but because he believes that God will speak.

Without this faith,

obedience becomes humiliation.

With it,

obedience becomes resurrection.

⸻

When the brethren love one another,

the elder breathes.

When they are divided,

he suffocates.

For he does not stand outside their life.

He contains it.

Every fracture passes through his heart.

Every hidden resentment becomes a wound in his prayer.

And if he is true,

he will not defend himself.

He will not force unity.

He will go before God and bleed for them.

This is his work.

Not to organize,

but to offer.

⸻

And the monk who understands this

ceases to live as an individual.

He enters into the mystery of the Body.

He begins to see his brother as his own life,

his elder as the place of his surrender,

and the monastery as the field where the will dies

and love is born.

Then obedience is no longer heavy.

It becomes fire.

It purifies without effort.

It unites without force.

It leads a man where he could never lead himself.

⸻

Where there is such an elder

and such brethren,

Christ walks unseen in their midst.

And where either is lacking,

the form remains,

but the life departs.

For the prophetic word is not preserved by structure,

but by hearts that are willing

to die in order to hear it.

Reflection based upon the writinngs of Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

The Most Wondrous and Paradoxical Ethos of Monasticism pp183-185