Last  week, I was exposed to a wonderful material that I would like to share with you. It is  a poem by Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022). Here, he ties the meaning of the Body of Christ  along the axis of awakening. He set us down firmly upon inner ground of transfiguration.

 

We awaken in Christ’s body

as Christ awakens our bodies,

and my poor hand is Christ. He enters

my foot, and is infinitely me.

 

I move my hand, and wonderfully

my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

(for God’s indivisibly

whole, seamless in his Godhood).

 

I move my foot, and at once

he appears like a flash of lighting.

Do my words seem blasphemous?– Then

open your heart to Him.

 

and let yourself receive the one

who is opening to you so deeply.

For if we genuinely love Him,

we wake up inside Christ’s body

 

where all our body, all over

every most hidden part of it,

is realized in joy as Him,

and He makes us utterly real,

 

and everything that is hurt, everything

that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

maimed, ugly, irreparably

damaged, is in Him transformed

 

and recognized as whole, as lovely,

and radiant in His light.

We awaken as the Beloved

in every part of our body.

 

Symeon the New Theologian, “Awaken in Christ’s Body”, in The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, ed Stephen Mitchell (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p 38