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A prophetic voice: Alexander Schmemann
Father Alexander, Dean of Saint Vladimir Seminary in New York, was a great prophetic voice in the secular wilderness of his and our contemporary world. These extracts from his book For the Life of the World convey his major concerns.
Today no one is interested in what was in the past a major preoccupation for Christians: the feasts and the seasons, the cycles of prayer, a very real concern about the “kairos” the time of liturgical celebration. Not only the average layman, even the theologian seems to say: the world of Christian “symbolism” is no longer our world, all this failed, all this is gone and we have more serious affairs to attend to; it would be unthinkable, ridiculous to try to solve any real “problem” of modern life by referring it, say, to Easter or Pentecost, or even to Sunday. (page 48).
We called Easter the “sacrament of time.” Indeed, the joy given on that night, the light that transforms the night into a night “brighter than day” is to become the secret joy and the ultimate meaning of all time, and this transform the year into a “Christian year.” After the Easter night comes the morning, and then another night and another new day. Time begins again, but it is now filled from “inside” with that unique and truly “eschatological” experience on a human face, each rainy morning, the fatigue of each evening – all is now referred to this joy and not only points beyond itself, but can also be a sign, a mark, a secret “presence” of that joy. (page 58).
Simeon had been waiting all his life, and then at last the Christ Child was given to him: he held the Life of the world in his arms. He stood for the whole world in its expectation and longing, and the words he used to express his thanksgiving have become our own. He could recognise the Lord because he had expected Him; he took him into his arms because it is natural to take someone you love into your arms; and then his life of waiting was fulfilled. He had beheld the One he had longed for. He had completed his purpose in life, and he was ready to die.
But death to him was no catastrophe. It was only a natural expression of the fulfilment of his waiting. He was not closing his eyes to the light he had at last seen; his death was only the beginning of a more inward vision of that light. In the same way Vespers is the recognition that the evening of this world has come which announces the day that has no evening. In this world every day faces night; the world itself is facing night. It cannot last forever. Yet the Church is affirming that an evening is not only an end, but also a beginning of another day. In Christ and through Christ it may become the beginning of a new life, of the day that has no evening. For our eyes have seen salvation and a light which will never fail. And because of this, the time of this world is now pregnant with new life. (pages 62-63).
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