“Not being of this world” does not mean being alien to the world, alien to life, or even loveless. On the contrary. The world as God’s creation is good and beautiful. Everything God gives is an expression of His infinite love and goodness.

The monastic “flee the world” is not Manichaean contempt for the world, not a pseudo-gnostic dualism of spirit and matter, but refers to the fundamental turning away from the falsifications of life, from sin, that is, from the state of separation from God. It is not about rejecting creation, but about deepest love in every respect, expressed in the fact that everything is joined anew to God, sanctified anew, and permeated by the divine Spirit of all-love. “Prepare a holy feast for the Lord and bind it to the horns of the altar,” says the Psalm (Septuagint 117, 29). This means that the whole of life, the whole creation, is joined to God in a holy feast. Everything earthly is offered to God as an example and thereby gains new, eternal being; everything is now “in God”. This is the meaning of monastic self-offering and of the whole monastic culture of life. Thus monasticism is the strongest sign of eternity in this world.

From there, in turn, participation takes place, an effect in the world, yet one no longer subject to the laws of the fallen world, no longer caught in the cycle of the outward, but grounded in God and acting from Him. Through it, therefore, sanctification and healing of the world take place. This is expressed, for example, in the beauty and holiness of worship, of the sanctuary, of the gardens, in the creation of sacred art, in chant and prayer, in the whole of life and being. Everything is permeated by the light of eternity, by the light of the Holy Trinity.

It is like a lever. If I want to lift a heavy stone, for example to set it into a wall, I need a long lever. If I stand on the stone myself, I cannot lift it. But if I stand on another firm ground and have a good lever, I can move any stone to where it is meant to be. This is a beautiful image for the monk’s work. Healing, sanctification, and blessing of the world are impossible from within the world itself. Only from outside, from another standpoint, precisely from eternity, can this happen. The wonderful thing, however, is this: access to eternity is not somewhere outside in space and time, far away, but deep within the human heart and in being and acting here and now. All earthly worldly ideas and ideologies get no further here. Because the monk stands “outside” the world, in eternity, he is able from there to lift and move the world. He does not say, “You must all come here and obey me”; he is neither moralist nor ideologue. But he stands on the firm rock of faith, wholly in God, and celebrates the holy feast of eternal life. And he celebrates it here in this world, in a sanctuary, whether large or small, significant or insignificant, where every sincere seeker can find.