Prayer and Humility
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Saturday, August 18, 2018
Friday, August 17, 2018
Love overlooks the flaws of another
Love overlooks the flaws of another
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immerlein: Amma Syncletica said: “In the beginning there is...
Amma Syncletica said: “In the beginning there is struggle and a lot of work for those who come near to God. But after that there is indescribable joy. It is just like building a fire: at first it is smoky and your eyes water, but later you get the desired result. Thus we ought to light the divine fire in ourselves with tears and effort.”
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Thursday, August 16, 2018
cassianus: “We don’t understand that this enemy that we have...
“We don’t understand that this enemy that we have inside us is not our self; it’s not our personality. It’s only a temptation. This is the seed of the problem of the ego. We unite our personality, which is a priceless event, with our faults. We confuse our personality with our sin; we marry these two things, and we have a wrong impression of what we are. We don’t know what we are, and we need someone to show us who we are; we need someone to open our eyes so that we can at least see our darkness.” - Archimandrite Dionysios
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The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian - Homily Forty-seven Part II and Homily Forty-eight Part I
We picked up this evening with homily 47 where Saint Isaac continues to discuss the distinction between natural knowledge and spiritual knowledge. Natural knowledge provides us with the ability to distinguish between good and evil. When we foster this knowledge and embrace it, repentance is born in the heart and we turn more more fully away from our sin toward God. It is then that we can receive the gift of faith through which we obtain spiritual knowledge. Such faith gives rise to the vision of the divine. We see more fully our identity in Christ and the life He has made possible for us. What is laborious and toilsome then becomes light and easy because we are no longer driven by fear or sorrow alone but by love.
In Homily 48, St. Isaac begins to take us through various aspects of the spiritual life starting with the necessity of humility in all things. It reaches its perfection when we see our weakness and poverty fully.
Along with humility we must foster a spirit of gratitude; avoiding the murmuring disposition that arises when we lose sight of God’s mercy and love. When suffering or when faced with evil we must not lose sight of the fact that God is the Lord of Love and the Governor of History. All things are in His hands despite the evil that so often manifests itself within the world and even the Church.
wisdomoftheholyfathers: From St. John of Kronstadt (My Life in...
From St. John of Kronstadt (My Life in Christ: Part II, Holy Trinity Monastery pg. 283):
“Let others mock at you, oppose you, when you are under the influence of any passion; do not be in the least offended with those who mock at or oppose you, for they do you good; crucify your self-love and acknowledge the wrong, the error of your heart. But have the deepest pity for those who mock at words and works of faith and piety, of righteousness; for those who oppose the good which you are doing… God preserve you from getting exasperated at them…”
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~~Icon of Saints John Climacus, John of Damascus and Arsenius...
~~Icon of Saints John Climacus, John of Damascus and Arsenius the Great
They used to say of Arsenius that no one could understand the depths of his monastic life. Once when he was living in Lower Egypt, and suffering from importunate visitors, he decided to leave his cell. He took nothing with him and said to his disciples, Alexander and Zoilus, “Alexander, you go on board a ship, and you, Zoilus, come with me to the Nile, and find me a little boat that is sailing to Alexandria, and then go and join your brother.”
Zoilus was sad at this, but said nothing, and so they parted, Arsenius went down to the district near Alexandria, and there fell gravely ill. His disciples said to each other, “Do you think one of us has upset him? Is that why he has left us?”
They examined themselves but could not see any way in which they had been ungrateful to him, or had ever disobeyed him. When Arsenius had recovered from his illness, he said to himself, “I will go back to my brothers.”
So he went to the place called Petra, where Alexander and Zoilus, his servants were. While he was by the river bank, he met an Ethiopian girl, who came up and touched his cloak. He rebuked her but she said, “If you are a monk, go to the mountain.”
At these words he was stricken to the heart, and said to himself, “Arsenius, if you are a monk, go to the mountain.” On the way his disciples Alexander and Zoilus met him, and fell at his feet. Arsenius also threw himself on the ground and they all wept. Then Arsenius said, “Didn’t you hear that I was ill?”
They said to him, “Yes, we heard about it.”
He said, “Then why didn’t you come to see me?”
Alexander said, “We were upset by your going away from us, for many people were shocked about it and said, ‘they must have disobeyed the hermit or surely he would not have left them.’”
Arsenius said to them, “Yes, I knew that would be said, but now it shall be said, 'The dove found rest for her foot, and so returned to Noah in the ark.’” The feelings of his disciples were healed by this, and they stayed with him until the end of his life.
When he lay dying, they were very distressed. He said to them, “The hour is not yet come, but when it does come I will tell you. You will be judged with me before the judgement seat of Christ, if you let anyone else touch my dead body.”
They said, “Whatever shall we do? We don’t know how to clothe or bury a dead body.”
Then Arsenius said, “I suppose you know enough to tie a rope to my leg and pull me up the mountain?”
When he was about to commit his soul to God, they saw him weeping, and said, “Abba, are even you afraid of death?”
He said, “Yes, indeed. The fear which possesses me now has been with me since I became a monk: and I am very much afraid.” So he slept in peace.
Arsenius always used to say this, “Why words, did I let you get out? I have often been very sorry that I have spoken, never that I have been silent.”
When Poemen heard that Arsenius had departed this life, he wept and said, “You are blessed, Arsenius, for you wept for yourself in this world. Whoever does not weep for himself in this world, shall lament for ever in the next. We cannot escape lamentation; if we do not lament here of our own will, we shall later be forced to lament against our will.”
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Wednesday, August 15, 2018
The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian - Homily Forty-six Part II and Homily Forty-seven Part I
Tonight we concluded Homily 46. St. Isaac again expresses the centrality of the holy Eucharist in giving us the strength to live and love as Christ desires. It is through the love that we receive at his hand that we are transformed. In Christ, the sinful, the sick and the hopeless find the desire for holiness, healing and trust in the promise of the Kingdom.
In Homily 47 St Isaac begins to discuss the distinction between natural and spiritual knowledge. We have all been gifted with the capacity to discern between good and evil. This natural knowledge, pursued and fostered, prepares us to receive the gift of faith and so the knowledge of God. If neglected however we will find ourselves impoverished, less than what we are to be as human beings; more like animals than those who have been made sons and daughters of God. We must live in a constant state of repentance, allowing it to draw us back to God and to the full measure of our humanity. Only then can we be raised up to share in the fullness of the life of God and experience the hope of eternity.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Beauty and Hesychia
"In the dazzling flesh of divinity, you have shown natural beauty to be even more beautiful O blessed Virgin, we bless the One whom you bore."Of the Athonite Life it is said: "Sacred matter, that which is given to God, is replete with divine grace. The souls of the saints fly and flutter about, luminous and full of light. The relics of the saints perpetually emit the same uncreated and scintillating light; and indescribable and uncreated fragrance pours from their tombs. Everything around is filled by the beauty of their contrition and the fragrance of heaven." Yet, if such is so for the monk, then such must also be true for every person filled with grace and part of the Body of Christ. "True beauty is captivating; it pours forth love. Furthermore it teaches man to love goodness, offering and sacrifice." One's entire sojourn and journey along the Christian way proves to be a theological initiation - an initiation into the life of the Divine. "It molds a person like a deifying womb and nurtures him for a new life. One comes to believe in the Incarnation of the Logos of God and in the deification (theosis) of that which He assumed. One comes to live and believe that God is love and perplexing beauty, that the unveiling of His love is a revelation of beauty, and that His beauty is an offering, freely given from the bounty of His goodness. With this great beauty He refashioned our human substance by His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection." From out of the withering, fleeting prison of our sin, we pass through the hour of judgment which breaks us down and resurrects us, toward enduring beauty and the freedom of inexpressible loveliness and the maturity of stillness. What we learn from the monk is that all men can be saved and become participants in the divine beauty through participation in the Lord's sufferings, through life-bearing mortification. To this end, Archimandrite Vasileios offers us the following reflection:
The monk’s life is beautiful because it is associated with that awesome hour of judgment and liberation. The monk’s life is a life of repentance and in the final analysis, is also a life of Transfiguration. It is the life of asceticism, labor, pain, endurance and tears. For this reason, it is crowned with divine and mystical consolation, and the beauty of spontaneity, truth and stillness. It is a life of philokalia, the love of beauty.
The monk pursues his love of beauty through his asceticism. He is an artist who grapples not with mere paints, sounds, or words, but struggles instead with his own entire being. He fashions himself. He asked to be given totally to God, to be fashion and by Him so that he can say willingly: “Not my will but Thine be done.“ When this happens, everything is given to him in that hour when he least expects it. His whole life bears the seal of that hour of crucifixion and resurrection. All his life becomes that hour of judgment from which springs the beauty of freely given salvation and the maturity of everlasting hesychia.
The monk pursues his love of beauty through his asceticism. He is an artist who grapples not with mere paints, sounds, or words, but struggles instead with his own entire being. He fashions himself. He asked to be given totally to God, to be fashion and by Him so that he can say willingly: “Not my will but Thine be done.“ When this happens, everything is given to him in that hour when he least expects it. His whole life bears the seal of that hour of crucifixion and resurrection. All his life becomes that hour of judgment from which springs the beauty of freely given salvation and the maturity of everlasting hesychia.
Then he either speaks, or writes, or builds, or chooses to remain silent with a comfort and a source of strength which are different. This is because Someone else is functioning instead of him. Someone else is speaking and writing, building or remaining silent.
Every hour becomes his sacrifice, his self-offering and thus the emergence as well of a perplexing beauty. Each of his trials becomes a blessing and so he remains silent and grateful. His entire self becomes a wound; his entire self becomes a spring of rejoicing. He lives Good Friday and the Resurrection at the same time. Every day he dies and every day he is resurrected. He does not live life as mere biological existence, but rather feels it breaking forth from the tomb at every hour to conquer death. Everything is a divine gift and a wonderful revelation. As the Lord said: "Do not be anxious about how you are to speak or what you are to say in that hour." In that hour, which is eternity, everything is given to him most vividly.
The true and genuine monk, the authentic monk, puts on no pretenses of being something he is not, because he is true. He moves and behaves unaffectedly. His entire being radiates the beauty that is within him. Better put, through his trials and endurance, divine beauty is revealed. His youth passes, he grows old but is rejuvenated. He becomes a "good" old man, a peaceful old man, in short, a monk. There is a comfort and a light which is not created light. There is a youth which is eternal, a humor which blossoms upon the tough branch of asceticism, and a life which ascends from the tomb. Such a monk, since he is liberated, plays in the morning of the Resurrection like a carefree child upon the sandy beach of the sea, upon the same seashore on which walks the resurrected Christ. He is tranquil because the Lord has mortified Hades with the lightning flash of His divinity.
A Beauty exists which abolishes death; a Stillness (hesychia) exists which abounds with eternal blessedness and splendor for all of us.
Archimandrite Vasileios
Abbot of Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos
Beauty and Hesychia in the Athonite Life
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