Expanded Horizons

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra once wrote:

This new experience – this opening of the heavens and the expansion of the horizon – is one of the most beautiful experiences that a person can have.  From then on, the character of our life is changed.  From then on, we soar through the sky on wings. Provided we want to.  Because there’s always the chance that, in our soaring flight, a treacherous, critical moment might come when we remember our self and prefer it over everything else.  All things are indeed ours.  But all things will turn against us like a bitter enemy if once again we become confined within ourselves.

But the moment we reject such narrowness and enter into the breadth and know the depth of the love of Christ (Eph 3.19), we discover that the whole world is ours: the earth, the sea, and the sky are all for us; so too the angels, the saints, and all the sacraments of the Church.  And God Himself – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – is wholly ours, for He gives to us His fullness.  Do you see?  You renounced yourself, and in return received God.