Sober drunkenness

How do we view the spiritual life?  Does it amount to engaging in episodic practices such as prayer and fasting or participation in certain rituals? Is it following a moral code or believing and upholding certain teachings? There is nothing wrong or antithetical about these realities to one’s practice of the faith.  But is it a true reflection of the life of faith, of life in Christ?  Have we made participating in the Divine Life common rather than something that fills us with wonder and unending desire?

Walking the way of the Lord, rather, running the way of His commandments, we obtain deeper and deeper knowledge of Him in Whom we believe, till we can snatch the movements of His thoughts, bringing 'every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ’. Longing for His life-giving presence more than for anything else - this presence which transforms, gives new birth and resurrects man's entire life - will unite our limited yet absolute desire for God, to God's divine desire to unite with man, untill we arrive at the fulness of His love. Once we acquire Christ as a living presence in our life, we are raised from faith to faith, from grace to grace, even from desire to drunkenness of the spirit - this sober drunkenness of a heart that seeks Him at all times.

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

“Monasticism”