Seeds
- Michael Haldas
- Aug 21
- 3 min read
“It is God’s desire that every single human be saved. God planted His truth like seeds throughout creation and in each human. Every human thus has the chance to recognize God within them and to come to the “knowledge of the truth.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“…the truth of anything is found not in the present, but in its telos, its end. A seed is not known until it is a tree. But, most importantly, this realization of the truth is not seen as a gradual progression, a building up towards the truth. Such a scheme would suggest that the truth is “not yet.” The truth, however, is already and now. We can say that the truth, which already exists in the age to come, draws everything towards itself. Or, we can say that the truth, which already exists in the age to come, manifests itself in time even now, for those who have the eyes to see.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“This is the path of transformation in an upward spiral of sanctification It is an iconological reflection of our relationship with God. The clearest example is the case of the Holy Gifts. God provides the seed to us; we receive it and change it by planting it in His earth. God, in turn, sends the rain and sun, so the seed is transformed into wheat and grapes; we harvest and transform them into bread and wine to offer them back to God in the Liturgy. God changes them into the Body and Blood of Christ and offers them back to us; we consume the Gifts, and this feeds and grows our lives. We offer our transformed lives back to God, who in turn offers us life eternal and participation in the divine nature.” (Andrew Williams)
“We find God everywhere, but I think that the very fact that we want to look for Him, whether going to a monastery or to a parish church, is God’s call as well. “He wants me to desire Him, and becomes a desire in me,” says St. Simeon the New Theologian. The question is, what do you do when you find Him? Desire is what drives you and calls you to come to God, but you don’t come looking anyway. Love changes you. Love makes you look like the one you love. But I think there might be a big problem here. It’s not enough just to find Him. A genuine meeting with God should transform us so that we can become different, if we have really found Him. And we can find Him wherever there are seeds of Divinity: in the world around us, in people, in ideas, and first of all the most living meeting is in the Holy Chalice, regardless of whether it is in a monastery or in a parish church.” (Protosinghel Galaction Dominte)
“… the Savior says to the disciples: ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how’ (Mark 4:26–27). Interesting is the expression, he himself does not know how. If the words, a man should scatter seed on the ground can only point to Christ throwing the seed of the Gospel into the heart of man, then the phrase he himself does not know how cannot in any way refer to Him, since He is God, and therefore knows everything. What then, is said here? Perhaps in this place, Scripture informs us of the following idea: After accepting the seed of the Gospel’s preaching into the human soul, this begins the process of the gradual ripening of the Kingdom of God; and this is a mystery, which cannot be rationally analyzed. Indeed, the mystery of spiritual life is very similar to the germination of a seed in the ground, just as slowly and subtly, through the experience of dying and resurrection, the heart is translated to a new life and brings forth spiritual fruits. As the earth conceals the growth of the seed within itself, until the first green shoots come out of the ground, likewise in man, the existence of a religious life is known only by its fruits.” (Sergei Komarov)
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