Greetings friends!
Isn’t the title of this issue so heartwarming and encouraging? It is, yes, I agree!
Joking aside, the title refers to the sufferings of St Maximus the Confessor. He was mutilated by having his tongue and right hand removed. This was done to him because of his confession of the Orthodox doctrine called dyothelitism.
This fancy theology word means that Christ possessed a divine and human will that was united, and this unity of wills is a necessary and critical aspect of salvation. In brief, God became man so that we might become God. This means that God assumed all of what it means to be human without altering, confusing, separating, or dividing either nature.
It can be difficult to align our own will with God’s will. We see Christ do this in the garden of Gethsemane when he prays to the Father asking for the chalice of suffering and death to pass from him—yet he goes further and says, “…Yet not my will, but your be done.” St Maximus imitated this in his own life, aligning himself to the will of God even when it meant being mutilated for Christ.
Few of us are likely to find ourselves in such a situation, but we can be divinized by mutilation just like St Maximus—but with a spiritual mutilation.
St Paul wrote about this in his epistle to the Romans in chapter 8, saying, “…If by the Spirit you mortify and put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Live. St Maximus, and many other saints, wrote concerning what true life is: Union with God… to be made like God. This is only possible in Christ, and the way to abide in Christ is to die so that we may be resurrected.
