Antoine Bloom
1914-2003 20th century
Beginning to pray where God seems absent, and standing at the door without forcing the meeting.
Who was Antoine Bloom?
Born in Lausanne to a Russian diplomat, raised between Persia and Paris, he met Christ at fourteen while reading Mark's gospel in order to be done with Christianity. A physician, a surgeon in the French army and then under the Occupation, he took secret monastic vows in 1943. Sent to London and made Metropolitan of Sourozh, he taught millions of readers and BBC listeners to pray, reaching into Soviet Russia, where his talks passed from hand to hand.
In their own words
The day when God is absent, when he is silent, that is the beginning of prayer.
We complain that he does not make himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for him, but what about the twenty-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer, I am busy, I am sorry, or do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of our heart?
Prayer is an encounter and a relationship, a relationship which is deep, and this relationship cannot be forced either on us or on God.