Discipleship through Father Galeriu’s approach
Just as grace cannot be grasped with the means of this world, just as the soul cannot be grasped, so the personality of the Father cannot be grasped in words, cannot be put into a pattern. And just as each one travels “on a ray”, has his own path and his own vocation towards the unique goal – Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, so each one of the Father’s disciples had his own unique experience, his own life, his own moment of awakening and attainment of grace. “Unity in diversity” – as Father used to say, or: “We are many, let us be one, following the example of the Holy Trinity!
For me, Father Galeriu was a gift from God!
My call to the spiritual came after many sufferings, after I had reached that limit where, more or less consciously, one finds God. And since “nothing is accidental, but everything is prone to happen”, I saw Father on Mr Tatulici’s programme: “Come with us to programme 2”. And it amazed me how so much wisdom and so much goodness can be combined! Since then I have been praying for Father to be my confessor. And the Lord, in His great mercy, brought me so close to Father!
Someone in my family, who heard me talking about Father Galeriu all the time, told me that he had heard on the radio that he was working at St. Sylvester’s Church. And I came to Sylvester in 1993, when I was 33 years old, on the Sunday of Thomas, when Father, who had just returned from Jerusalem, was giving the homily. For me it was overwhelming! I know he talked a lot about uncreated grace, and for a whole week I wondered what this grace was. Only I didn’t find the understanding in my mind, but it was the work of grace: sitting in the pew one evening at Vespers, after I had made my first confession to the Father, I suddenly had a clear understanding of what the uncreated light is, the divine energies that come down from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. This was the first fruit of Father’s prayers.
Father had such humility that he would come down to the level of us, each one of us. And he would ask you about your life, about the life of your family, with such attention as if you were the centre of the universe. He did everything, all of it, according to the word of the Apostle, so that at least one could be won for Christ. To what extent we, spiritual sons like the others, understand this, only God knows! Father was an encyclopaedia. I don’t know to what extent it was the fantastic memory of His Holiness or the work of the Holy Spirit. But Father could talk for hours on subjects in so many different fields, and with such luxury of detail, that it was as if he had just come from the thickest tomes and the latest publications in the field. I remember once a Japanese man came to him and astonished him with his knowledge not only of his country’s religion, but also of its history, culture and civilisation.
What I couldn’t understand then was Father’s great love for people. “… so love one another as I have loved you…”. So the model was Christ. “You are my soul!” – Father once said to me. And I felt this alive, I felt the warmth of the Spirit filling my heart and then pouring into my whole body, overwhelming me! Later I heard other spiritual sons say the same thing. And I understood, to the extent of my mind, that the Father had so much love that he embraced us all, that everyone had his place and his role, that the Father belonged to all, that he could not belong to one person, whoever and whatever he was. And by his example he taught us to strive to get out of our selfishness, out of our smallness, to go beyond our creaturely condition and to strive for absolute freedom. “Deify nothing in this world” (do not put anyone or anything in the place of the Creator). And how many times did I not have this tendency, but Father, with gentleness, without forcing my freedom in any way, opened my eyes and made me see clearly: “What is he offering you? Does it contribute to salvation?” And then the healing came. Because the Father helps you with prayer. Because no matter how late it was, most of the time it was after midnight, and no matter how tired he was, Father would bend his knees in prayer. That’s how he fought all the evils in us, trying to lead us to the Way, to save us, with the gentleness that only the saints are capable of.
Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, in the chapter “Meekness and Holiness” of the book “The Prayer of Jesus and the Experience of the Holy Spirit”, speaks in simple words of great clarity about the person of the saint. And in this description I recognised our Father: “… by his availability in relationships, by his extreme attention to others, by the readiness with which he gives himself to Christ, the saint makes visible towards every human being a behaviour full of gentleness, transparency, purity of thought and feeling. His gentleness is also shown towards animals and things, because he sees in everything a gift of God’s love and he does not want to harm this love by treating these gifts with carelessness and indifference. He respects every person and every thing, and when a person or even an animal suffers, he shows them deep compassion”[1].
The saint has the purity of a child’s heart, its innocence, its total openness to all. Our Father even said: “May you have the heart of an innocent child and the mind of a wise old man!”
When you sat next to Father, you felt as if you were out of time; time was stretched… nothing in everyday life was important, all your attention was directed to the words he spoke. Even when he was silent, you felt the peace, the joy, the warmth of prayer… you entered into this “today” and “now” of God. Most of the time I didn’t even dare open my mouth because I thought I would say something stupid. I know how much wisdom Father has. But he would ask you, stimulate you, make you think that what you were saying was very important, that he couldn’t do anything without your help. At other times, in a pedagogical spirit, he would also teach you, but very gently.
“I feel that I am in the truth!”, Father would say. “That gives me strength! Christ is the truth, the way and the life. “The model… – as Father Stăniloae confesses in the volume quoted, is the “kenosis” of Christ, his descent. He did not want to stay away from sinners, nor from women, who are shunned by those who value their reputation.
And so was the Father, especially during his year and seven months of suffering, when, like a lamb “led to the slaughter and like a sheep without a voice”, he thanked everyone for their care, for their concern, asked for help with timidity, listened to everyone…
This suffering, as Father Acachie, Abbot of the Romanian Lacu Hermitage on Mount Athos, said, was granted by God so that the Father could enter the Kingdom clean, pure… And all the signs before and during Father’s funeral showed how much God loved him.
(Ioana Matei – And I have been the disciple/ureness of Father Galeriu, edited by Argentina Grămada Dragu, Reproexpres Publishing House, Valencia, pp. 127-130)
[1] Pr. Prof. Dr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Jesus’ Prayer and the Experience of the Holy Spirit, Deisis Publishing House, Sibiu, 2003, pp. 53-65.