THE FAMINE OF PERCEPTION

Reflection on the holy Gospel reading for the first Sunday after the Feast of Holy Cross

Old Testament reading: Genesis 42:1-8; Hosea 5:1-5; Isaiah 57:14-20

Holy Gospel reading: St. Mark 13:30-37

The setting of St. Mark chapter 13 begins with Christ on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, while Peter, James, John, and Andrew question Him privately concerning the future. The disciples gaze upon the splendour of Temple and wonder about coming events. At the conclusion of His discourse concerning tribulation, judgement, and the coming of the Son of Man, Christ gives His disciples neither a date to calculate nor a chronology to master but instead redirects them to the deeper task of watchfulness.

The concern of the disciples is when the Lord will come; His concern is how they will be found when He comes.

Watchfulness is often reduced to a temporal exercise, a strenuous refusal to sleep while counting the hours until an expected arrival. Yet in the Scriptures, watchfulness signifies something far deeper than anxious scrutiny of history or fearful anticipation of the world's end. Holy Scripture does not condemn bodily rest. Sleep itself is a gift of God, and the restoration of the body is part of the Creator's loving provision for His creatures. Rather, Christ warns against a more perilous sleep; the slumber of a soul that has lost its eschatological vision. 

It is possible to remain physically awake while becoming spiritually insensible, to continue living within God’s world while no longer expecting God, discerning His presence, or longing for His visitation. The sleeping soul may remain religiously active; it may participate in worship and occupy itself with sacred things. Yet beneath this outward activity, it neither recognises His presence nor His voice. It waits for Him at the end of history while repeatedly passing Him by within history. The deepest danger of spiritual sleep, therefore, is not merely that we cease to see. It is that we cease to see truly.

Genesis 42 provides a haunting Old Testament icon of this spiritual condition. Famine has driven Jacob's sons to go down to Egypt for grain, and they stand before the very brother they betrayed, but do not know him. "Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew him not" (Genesis 42:8). The poignancy of the scene lies in its terrible nearness. Joseph is not absent from them. He stands directly before them, sees them, hears them, and remembers them.

This is the tragedy of unwatchfulness in its most personal form; to stand in the presence of the one who bears life and salvation yet remain blind to his identity. Their failure of recognition is not merely the result of Joseph’s Egyptian appearance. Years of guilt and distance have dulled the faculty of recognition itself.

Against this failure of recognition stands one of the most luminous moments in the Gospel. When the Virgin Mary enters the house of Elizabeth and offers her greeting, the unborn John leaps within his mother’s womb, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. Joseph’s grown brothers stand before their deliverer and fail to recognise him; John, still hidden in the darkness of the womb, perceives the approach of his Lord and responds with joy. Those who possessed bodily sight remained spiritually blind, while the child, who is yet to behold the light of the day, recognised the Light of the world. The infant’s leap was the response of a life already made attentive by grace.

Watchfulness begins precisely here. It is the purification of perception by which the soul becomes capable of recognising Christ beneath the veils through which He chooses to approach us. The Lord who shall come in glory is also the Lord who comes quietly within history. He comes clothed in the distress of a neighbour, in the interruption of a stranger, in the silence of prayer, in the demands of mercy, and in the unspectacular duties of ordinary faithfulness.

The spiritually sleeping heart asks, “When will the Lord come?” even while the Lord stands unrecognised at its door. The great danger is not simply that Christ may come and find us physically asleep. It is that He may come as Joseph stood before his brothers, present but unknown, near but unrecognised, bearing the bread of life while we perceive only a stranger.

St. Mark himself gives us a beautiful embodiment of such watchfulness immediately after the conclusion of the discourse on Mount Olives with the story of the woman with the alabaster jar (St. Mark 14:3–9). In Bethany, an unnamed woman enters the house carrying an alabaster vessel of precious ointment. The disciples have heard Christ speak repeatedly of His suffering and death, yet they remain unable to comprehend. While the Twelve remain preoccupied with timetables and status, she alone perceives the sacred urgency. She cannot explain every event that is about to unfold. Yet she discerns the moment and responds to it with extravagant love by pouring the ointment upon the head of Christ. She watches because she loves, and because she loves, she sees.

The second Old Testament reading from Hosea 5 exposes the interior corruption by which spiritual vision is lost. The prophet addresses a people whose estrangement from God has become so deeply rooted that it now governs their very capacity to perceive. Hosea declares- “The pride of Israel testifies to his face” (v.5). Pride is both evidence and blindness. It exposes the soul’s estrangement from God while simultaneously preventing that soul from perceiving the truth about itself. Pride encloses the person within the narrow world of the self. The soul curves inward until it can no longer behold anything beyond its own reflection.

This is why the proud heart cannot watch. Watchfulness requires an openness to the unexpected movements of God, but pride has already decided where God may appear, how He must act, and through whom He is permitted to speak. When He comes in a form that unsettles our expectations, pride dismisses Him. When He speaks through a person we consider insignificant, pride refuses to listen. When He approaches through repentance, correction, or costly obedience, pride turns away. Hosea’s warning is consequently severe-we may possess sight and yet remain blind, hear the words of God and yet resist His voice, stand within the precincts of religion and yet fail to know the Lord.

Where Hosea unveils the blindness produced by pride, Isaiah 57 reveals the healing of vision through humility and contrition. Humility is not self-contempt, nor is contrition a denial of human dignity. Humility is the restoration of truth within the soul. It is the blessed release of making the self the centre of all things. The humble heart sees clearly because it no longer demands that reality conform to its own desires. It becomes receptive, spacious, and capable of wonder. 

Humility awakens the soul to the God who has already drawn near. And the purpose of this nearness is healing: “I have seen his ways, and will heal him” (Isaiah 57:18). The contrite are not healed because they have attained spiritual perfection. They are healed because they have ceased to hide their wounds from the Physician. Humility is the point at which the soul stops defending its sickness and consents to be healed.

This is the watchfulness to which Christ summons us. It is not the mastery of dates but the daily schooling of the heart in humility, mercy, repentance, and love, so that the features of Christ may become familiar to us even beneath the disguises of ordinary life. And whenever and however the Lord comes, He will not find us incapable of recognising Him.

The watchful heart is not a tense heart, perpetually afraid of being caught unprepared. It is a wounded but open heart, waiting for the One who comes not merely to inspect but to restore. It does not watch in terror, as though the Master’s return were a threat. It watches with longing because it has learned that the One who comes is the Physician, the Bridegroom, the rejected Brother bearing bread, and the Lord worthy of every drop of precious ointment.

The tragedy would not be that the Lord came at an hour we had failed to predict. It would be that He came in mercy, in suffering, in sacrament, in neighbour, in stranger, and in the secret visitations of grace, yet found us unable to recognise Him. The decisive question is whether we have loved Him deeply enough to know Him when He comes.

In Christ,
Rincy

ILLUMINED FREEDOM

Reflection on the holy Gospel reading for the fifth Sunday after the Feast of Dormition of the Theotokos

Old Testament reading: Leviticus 18: 1-5; Joshua 22: 1-6 and Ezekiel 34: 1- 6

Holy Gospel reading: St. Luke 11:33-41

The Grammar of Hidden Sanctity- Fiat Without Fanfare

Remembering Rev. Fr. George Philip, Mar Baselios Dayara Njaliakuzhy 

(d. 04 September 2022)

There is a peculiar difficulty in speaking about a truly humble man; the very virtues that make him worthy of remembrance are often those he took greatest care to conceal. Humility does not arrange its achievements for posterity or leave carefully polished accounts of its sacrifices. It passes quietly through the world, often recognised only when the life that bore it has withdrawn from sight.

The Apostle Paul, writing to a congregation altogether too enamoured of eloquence and distinction, delivered a verdict that every generation of the Church is obliged to relearn- “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty”-1 Corinthians 1:27.

It is a verdict our age receives uneasily, as we are accustomed to measure spiritual authority by credentials, publications, position, and visibility. Fr. George Philip possessed few of these instruments of recognition. Yet those who lived with him or were formed under his quiet discipline encountered a man whose spiritual authority seemed to arise from an altogether different source, not from accomplishment, but from surrender to the will of God.

The desert tradition of the Church produced, alongside its great theologians and teachers, an entire company of deliberately obscure men and women who cultivated a holiness partly expressed through the refusal to be noticed. At the furthest end of this tradition stand the Holy Fools, whose suspicion of spiritual reputation was so severe that they sometimes embraced misunderstanding to escape veneration. George Achen was no Holy Fool in that dramatic sense; he sought no scandal and cultivated no eccentricity for its own sake. Yet he shared something of the same theological grammar, the conviction that the self is an obstacle to be continually set aside rather than a possession to be endlessly promoted.

Early Life and Call to Priesthood

Fr. George Philip was born on 20 November 1952 into the Mannalumbhagom family of Puthuppally as the son of Adv. P. J. George and Mariamma George. Known affectionately to his family as Siby, he received the baptismal name Philip and was officially named P. George Philip. He grew up with his siblings, P. George Joseph, George P. Abraham, and Andamma George, in a household rooted in the agricultural life of the land.

 After completing his schooling and graduating from S. B. College, Changanassery, he travelled to Goa to study law, intending to follow his father’s profession. Before long, however, he realised that the legal profession was not the path appointed for him. Leaving his studies unfinished, young Philip made the decisive choice to offer his life to the service of God. He informed the then Metropolitan of the Kottayam Diocese, His Grace Paret Mathews Mar Ivanios, of his desire and subsequently joined the Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam.

It was only after entering the Seminary that Philip began serving within the Holy Altar. Following his seminary studies, he obtained master’s degrees in Malayalam, Sanskrit, and English. Yet scholarship never became for him a means of distinction. Learning was placed within the larger discipline of the spiritual life and subjected to the question that would govern nearly every aspect of his existence- What is the will of God?

Fr. George Philip served as associate vicar and vicar in several parishes of the Kottayam Diocese, including some that later became part of the Nilakkal Diocese. During this period, he also lived at Pampady Dayara, embracing a manner of life increasingly shaped by solitude, restraint, prayer, and the disciplines of monasticism.

He served as Vice Principal of B.M.M. School and as Head of its Malayalam Department. After many years of teaching, he took voluntary retirement and joined Mar Baselios Dayara, Njaliakuzhy. With the permission of his bishop, His Grace Geevarghese Mar Ivanios Metropolitan, he eventually withdrew from parish responsibilities to serve as chaplain of the Dayara and devote himself more fully to prayer, silence, and meditation.

A Pathway Around Idle Speech

During his years at the Dayara, students noticed a peculiar habit. If George Achen saw two or three of them gathered in conversation, he would sometimes turn aside and reach his room by another route. It was not aloofness, nor was it intended as a rebuke. When asked about the practice, he offered a simple and unsparing answer that when people stand together, the tongue speaks more than it should, and eventually this may lead to sin and disturb the spiritual life.

To modern ears, such reasoning may appear excessively austere. We inhabit a culture in which continuous expression is treated almost as an unquestionable good to remain relevant in society. Silence is easily mistaken for absence, weakness, or disapproval. George Achen understood that many of the soul’s gravest injuries begin in unguarded words. The tongue can wound another, feed vanity, spread suspicion, and cloud the mind that seeks God. He therefore guarded speech not because he despised company, but because he understood his own frailty.

A few extra steps to avoid idle conversation became a miniature expression of monastic anthropology. The body changed its course so that the heart might remain attentive.

The Will of God Before Every Other Good

The phrase most closely associated with George Achen’s spiritual teaching was the “will of God.” For Achen, this was the criterion by which every action, including apparently virtuous actions, had to be judged.

On one occasion, he advised an inmate not to run about attempting to do everything that came before him. The inmate explained that whenever he began one task, someone else would call him to another. He believed that responding to every request was an act of obedience. Did not the Lord command His disciples to go the second mile and to surrender even their cloak when it was demanded of them?

George Achen listened and gently corrected that one must look for the will of God in everything. Otherwise, even obedience, when separated from discernment, can lead to wrongdoing.

George Achen did not permit even obedience to take the place of discernment. For him, obedience was neither mechanical compliance with every demand nor an anxious attempt to satisfy every expectation. Even a seemingly good action could become spiritually disordered if it arose from pride, fear, distraction, or the desire to appear useful. The question was therefore not merely- “Is this action generous? Is it difficult? Does someone expect it of me?” The deeper question was- “Does this belong to God, or merely to my own restlessness?”

Prayer as Repentance and Intercession

When asked how one might pray continually, George Achen’s answer was simple, practical, and grounded in an honest knowledge of the human heart.

He taught that one should begin by praying for oneself. After some time, the mind becomes aware that it has been occupied chiefly with its own needs, and this awareness produces repentance. Repentance then moves the person to pray for others. Later, while interceding for others, one becomes conscious again of one’s own weakness and returns to prayer for oneself. Thus, prayer continues in a rhythm, moving between personal repentance and intercession for the world.

The apparent simplicity of this counsel conceals considerable spiritual wisdom. George Achen did not imagine that unceasing prayer required the elimination of human weakness. Weakness itself could become the point from which prayer can begin again; self-concern led to repentance, repentance opens the heart towards others, and intercession returned the soul to an awareness of its own dependence upon mercy. Prayer thus moved in a circle, but not a fruitless one. Each return went deeper.

“We should always pray for the will of God and for God’s mercy,” he taught. These two petitions belonged together. To seek the will of God without His mercy could become harsh striving. To seek mercy without surrender to His will could become spiritual self-indulgence.

A Bible Worn by Use

Near the place where George Achen stood to pray was a simple cane stool. Upon it he kept his prayer books and his Bible. The Bible was heavily worn, its pages bearing visible evidence of a long companionship with Scripture. There is an old saying that a good Christian’s Bible is often worn.

On Saturdays, after evening prayer, he would gather the students and ask them to read the relevant portions from the Old and New Testaments according to the lectionary. At times he questioned them about what had been read, taking particular interest in how the Old Testament and New Testament readings illuminated one another.

Communion Before Charity

George Achen taught that the Christian life flows from Holy Communion to good deeds, not the other way around. Through Holy Communion, the faithful receive the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord and are drawn into His life. From that union, we are called to serve others and act with the mind and character of Christ.

The movement is from altar to the world, from sacrament to service, and from communion to charity. Christian action proceeds from union with Christ. For this to happen, we must remain continually connected to Christ through the Eucharistic life of the Church.

It is this conviction which protects the service from becoming self-glorification. When good works are severed from communion with Christ, they can easily become an exercise in moral pride. The person may seek to appear godlike through the greatness of his deeds while remaining inwardly untouched by the humility of God.

Authority Without Ambition

Achen usually observed others in silence and rarely invoked authority merely because he possessed it. Yet his restraint was neither timidity nor indecision. When something needed to be said, he said it without hesitation, and his words carried weight precisely because they had not been multiplied carelessly.

The same freedom appeared during discussions concerning episcopal nominations. When one of the monks suggested that all suitable persons should be permitted to submit their names, George Achen agreed. Achen reasoned that if the Church has asked for deserving candidates, then all who are considered suitable should be offered to the Church with prayer, leaving the result to the will of God.

While discussions and speculation continued outside the Dayara, Achen remained calm and gentle, refusing to be drawn into the surrounding negotiations.

When a fellow monk asked whether he should submit his own nomination, George Achen advised him to do so and said that if it were God’s will, he might be chosen; if not, the disappointment itself might become a blessing by exposing and correcting any pride within his spiritual life. When the monk later considered withdrawing, George Achen discouraged him and asked him to leave the result to God. This monk and two others were subsequently raised to the episcopate.

We are accustomed to judging success and failure as opposites, one desirable and the other regrettable. George Achen saw them differently. Neither was ultimate, and neither possessed an independent meaning. Success could become spiritually perilous if it fostered pride, while failure could become a blessing if it humbled and purified the heart. Both, when surrendered to God, could serve as instruments of grace.

The Theology That Became a Life

While theological concepts are usually expressed in propositions, George Achen’s was expressed almost entirely in verbs; through yielding, in withholding speech, in tending soil and cattle, in reading the Scriptures with unwavering constancy, in asking, before every act, whether the act in question belonged to God or merely to himself. He returned to the same truths until they entered the movements of his body and the instincts of his mind.

The Church has always known that this is the more difficult theology to develop; not the theology that is written, but the theology that is lived, day after day, until the distinction between the person and his prayer can no longer easily be drawn.

For George Achen, monastics were “living martyrs.” They were called to die to the world each day so that they might live more completely with God. This martyrdom was not ordinarily enacted in a single heroic moment. It took place through inconspicuous renunciations, a word left unspoken or a preference surrendered. His life was shaped by precisely this hidden martyrdom.

George Achen fell asleep in the quiet of his own cell, on 04^th September 2022, days before the Church’s commemoration of the Nativity of the Theotokos. The Theotokos is venerated by the Church for the totality of her yielding; a will so thoroughly surrendered that it became the very ground upon which the Incarnation could occur. “Let it be to me according to your word” (St. Luke 1:38). The surrender expressed by the Theotokos in that single sentence, a fiat without fanfare, had been the long labour of George Achen’s life.

Achen’s mortal remains were taken to his mother parish, St. George Orthodox Church, Puthuppally, and to his family home, where the appointed services were conducted and then brought back to Mar Baselios Dayara. On Monday, 05^th September 2022, the funeral was conducted near the chapel under the leadership of His Holiness Baselios Marthoma Mathews III Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan, together with the assembled metropolitans and priests. He was laid to rest near the resting place of His Grace Geevarghese Mar Ivanios Metropolitan (of blessed memory).

In an age fascinated by visibility, George Achen’s witness recalls the Christian conviction that the holiest lives are often hidden from the world and known fully only to God. This was the grammar of his hidden sanctity. Grammar does not ordinarily draw attention to itself; it stands beneath speech, quietly giving order and intelligibility to every sentence. In much the same way, the hidden disciplines of Achen’s life stood beneath his words and actions. Silence, repentance, Scripture, Eucharist, obedience, and discernment were not isolated virtues, but parts of an underlying spiritual order by which his whole life became intelligible.

Only after his departure did those who had lived around him begin to understand the place he had quietly occupied among them. Many remembered that he had not spoken to them often. Yet they also remembered that he had been present, someone among them whose silence was not emptiness but prayer.

May his memory be eternal and may the humility he practised so unassumingly continue to instruct those of us who remain, still labouring, as he once did, to discern in each small matter what is truly and simply the will of God.

By the prayers and intercessions of our father among the saints, Fr. George Philip, may the Lord have mercy upon us and help us.

In Christ,
Rincy

(Ref: Mounamudridam, edited by Fr. Yohannan A., Mashikkoottu, 2023)

 

Remembering Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan (d. 02 Sep 2008)

 

On September 2, the Malankara Orthodox Church commemorates the memory of Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan (1919-2008), a monk and a teacher. A member of Bethelehem Monastery, Chengamanad, which was established as an extension of St. George Orthodox Monastery, Othera, Rambachan lived during a period when many faithful were increasingly exposed to modern movements that promoted a "Bible-only" understanding of Christianity. In response, he would often remind people- "It is the Church that teaches; the Holy Bible validates the instructions of the Church."

This conviction shaped his entire ministry. To those considering leaving the Orthodox Church, he would gently pose two thought-provoking questions: 

(1)"Do you think being in the Orthodox Church will prove to be a barrier to the salvation of your soul?" 

(2)"If you have a difference of opinion within your family, do you bid farewell to your home forever and move into a neighbouring house?"

Early Life

Cyril Rambachan was born on November 10, 1919, to Shri Abraham Panickar and Smt. Aleyamma Panickar of the Mukalel family in Kundara, Kerala. Before embracing monastic life, he was known as M. A. Varghese Panickar.

Rambachan once recounted an interesting tradition concerning the title "Panickar." According to local history, when the Raja of Kottarakkara visited the king of Kayamkulam, he was impressed by a dramatic performance staged in his honor. Upon learning that the performers were also skilled martial artists and loyal subjects, he requested that some of them be settled in his kingdom. The request was granted, and these martial warriors were established in Kundara with the title "Panickar." A church was later built for the community, which is today known as St. Thomas Orthodox Church, Kundara.

After completing the ninth standard, Varghese Panickar worked briefly as a teacher at St. Kuriakose L.P. School before completing his S.S.L.C. education at M.G.D. School. During the years of the Second World War, he moved to Madras and served the British Indian Army as a civilian Quartermaster Clerk, overseeing supplies and the management of twenty-five military trucks.

Following the war, he returned to Kerala and served as a teacher at Kundara M.G.D. High School from 1947 to 1950. He later worked as a Library Inspector for the taluks of Kollam, Karunagappally, and Karthikappally. Yet despite having a stable career, he felt a deeper calling.

A Life Offered to God

In 1953, Varghese Panickar resigned from government service and joined St. George Orthodox Monastery, Othera. The monastery was then under the leadership of Rev. Fr. E. Mathews, who would later become His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II Catholicos. The monastery was home to eighteen inmates, and in this community the future Rambachan began his formal spiritual formation.

From 1953 to 1958, he studied at the Old Seminary in Kottayam. Among his classmates was the future Mathews Mar Epiphanios Metropolitan. On March 25, 1958, Dn. Varghese was ordained to the priesthood.

Over the next five decades, Fr. Geevarghese Panickar faithfully served numerous parishes in India and abroad, including Kudassanad, Kozhikode Cathedral, Mavelikara Puthiyacavu, Kollam Cathedral, Vellore, Singapore, and Malaysia. Wherever he served, he became known for his commitment to prayer, discipline, and Orthodox teaching.

In 1987, His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I Catholicos ordained Geevarghese Achen to the rank of Rambachan, formally embracing the fullness of monastic life.

Rambachan’s prayer book was a constant companion. Whether traveling or at home, he was careful to maintain the discipline of prayer. If the appointed hour of prayer arrived while he was walking, he would quietly seek a secluded place, often beneath the shade of a tree, and continue his prayers.

Kundara Seminary, established by His Holiness Baselios Geevarghese II Catholicos to support the ministries of the southern dioceses, became closely associated with Cyril Rambachan's life and ministry.

From 1982 until his repose in 2008, he served as its Manager for twenty-six years. During this time, he worked tirelessly for the spiritual growth of the institution and was instrumental in establishing within the seminary the holy relics of St. George, Mar Kauma, St. Kuriakose, and St. Yulithi. Every Friday, he organized special prayers for the students of M.G.D. School and personally counseled them in matters of faith.

When someone once asked whether he felt lonely living at the seminary, Rambachan simply pointed to the portraits of departed holy fathers hanging in its hall and replied that he enjoyed their company. With saints as companions, he saw no reason to fear solitude.

One concern that weighed heavily upon his heart was the declining number of young people embracing monastic life. He viewed this not merely as an organizational challenge but as a spiritual loss for the Church. Indeed, his own love for the monastic vocation was so profound that when he learned his name had been proposed for episcopal consideration, he personally approached His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I Catholicos and requested that his name be withdrawn, preferring the quiet path of monastic service.

Inspired by the call of his spiritual father, His Holiness Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II Catholicos, to live as a pilgrim journeying toward heaven, Rambachan undertook many pilgrimages beginning in 1978. These journeys took him to lands intimately connected with biblical history, including Holy Land, Jordan, Greece, and Egypt. His travels were not undertaken merely for personal devotion. He studied ancient Christian sites deeply, particularly the monasteries of Egypt, and shared his findings through books and writings.

After a lifetime of service, prayer, teaching, and sacrifice, Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan departed this earthly life on September 2, 2008. He was laid to rest at Chengamanad Bethlehem Monastery, the community he loved and served.

His life stands as a quiet reminder that the most enduring service to the Church is often offered not through prominence, but through steadfast faithfulness.

In one of his interviews, he left a simple message to the faithful-"Participate without fail in the liturgical life and rituals of the Malankara Orthodox Church. Love your Church. Respect the holy fathers. See to it that you always maintain simplicity and purity in your life."

May those words remain engraved upon our hearts.

May the memory of Very Rev. Cyril Rambachan be eternal.

In Christ,

Rincy

Reference: (Translated from Malayalam) Bethlehemile Theerthadakan, ed. Fr. K. Geevarghese, Chengamanad: B.A. Publications, 2009.