EXCERPTS FROM THE LIFE IN CHRIST by NICHOLAS CABASILAS
Yet we are such wretched material
that the seal cannot remain unaffected, “for we have this treasure in earthen
vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7). We therefore partake of the remedy not once for all, but
constantly. The potter must constantly sit by the clay and repeatedly restore
the shape which is being blurred. We must continually experience the
Physician’s hand as He heals the decaying matter and raises up the failing
will, lest death creep in unawares. For it says, “even when we were dead
through trespasses He made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5), and “the
blood of Christ shall purify your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God” (Heb. 9:14). The power of the holy table draws to us the true life
from that blessed Heart, and there we become able to worship God purely.
If,
then, the pure worship of God consists in being subject to Him, obeying Him,
doing all things as He moves us , I know not how we are capable of being
subject to God more than by becoming His members. Who, more than the head, can
command the members of the body? While every other sacred rite makes its
recipients into members of Christ, the Bread of Life effects this most
perfectly. For, as the members live because of the head and the heart, so, He
says, “he who eats Me will live because of Me” (Jn. 6:57).
So also man lives because of food,
but not the same way in this sacred rite. Since natural food is not itself
living it does not of itself infuse life into us, but by aiding the life which
is in the body it appears to those who to eat the cause of life. But the Bread
of Life is Himself living, and through Him those to whom He imparts Himself
truly life. While natural food is changed into him who feeds on it, and fish
and bread and any other kind of food become human blood, here it is entirely
opposite. The Bread of Life Himself changes him who feeds on Him and transforms
and assimilates him into Himself. As He is the Head and the Heart, we depend on
Him for loving and living since He possesses life.
This the Savior Himself reveals. He
does not sustain our life in the same way as food; but since He Himself has by
nature He breathes it into us, just as the heart or the head imparts life to
the members. So He calls Himself “the living Bread” (Jn. 6:51) and says, “he
who eats Me will live because of me” (Jn. 6:57). [The Life in Christ 4:8]
It follows, therefore, that he who has chosen to live in Christ should cling to that Heart and that Head, for we obtain life from no other source. But this is impossible for those who do not will what He wills. It is necessary to train one’s purpose, as far as it is humanly possible, to conform to Christ’s will and to prepare oneself to desire what He desires and to enjoy it, for it is impossible for contrary desires to continue in one and the same heart. As he says, “the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart knows how to produce nothing but evil” (cf. Lk. 6:45), and the good man that which is good.
The faithful in Palestine, since they desired the same things, “were,” as it says, “of one heart and soul” (Acts: 4:32). In the same way, if one does not share in Christ’s purpose but goes against that which He commands, he does not order his life according to Christ’s heart but is clearly dependant on a different heart. In contrast, God found David to be according to His heart, for he said, “I have not forgotten Thy commandments” (Ps. 119:16, 61, etc.). Since it is impossible, then, to live [in Christ] unless we depend on His heart, and one cannot depend on Him without willing what He wills, let us examine how we may love the same things as Christ and rejoice at the same things as He, in order that we may be able to live.
[The Life in Christ 6:2]
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