Month: April 2018

April 21

Our sufferings for the most part are extremely trifling, so that at first sight it seems impossible to regard them as sufferings at all. But that is only the cunning of our enemy who has acquired in the struggle with feeble man uncommon skill and experience, thanks to long practice. The fallen spirit saw that cruel, coarse, obvious temptations (sufferings) provoke in people flaming zeal and courage to bear them. He saw this, and changed his tactics. He changed his coarse temptations to weak but subtle ones which act very powerfully. They do not evoke zeal from our heart, they do not cause it to struggle, but they keep it in a kind of irresolute state and fill the mind with doubt.

They weary and gradually exhaust the powers of a man’s soul, they throw him into despondency and inaction, and they ruin him by making him an abode of passions on account of his weakness, despondency, and inertia….

We must not give way to listlessness, despondency, and inertia. On the contrary, let us direct all our attention and all our energy to carrying out the commandments of the Gospel. This obedience will reveal to us the countless snares of the enemy, and that cunning forethought with which his traps are planned and set. We shall see that the outwardly slight troubles and trials of today are directed, like the grim troubles and trials of old, to draw men away from Christ and to destroy true Christianity on earth, only leaving the shell to deceive people more easily. We shall see that temptations that are slight but are planned and carried out with hellish wickedness act much more successfully in the eyes of Satan than grave but obvious and direct attacks.

~Ignatius Brianchaninov

April 20

Life according to the will of God is becoming very difficult. That is because, when you live in the midst of temptations and have them constantly before your eyes, it is impossible not to be influenced by them. Just as ice in the presence of warmth loses its firmness and is converted into the softest water, so even a heart overflowing with goodwill, if exposed to the constant influence of temptations, is weakened and changed. Life according to the laws of God is becoming very difficult on account of the widespread, general apostasy.

The increasing apostates, by calling themselves and appearing outwardly to be Christians, will all the more easily be able to persecute the true followers of Christ. The increasing apostates surround true Christians with countless snares, and put countless obstacles in the way of their salvation and their good intention to serve God…the Savior of the world could scarcely find refuge in insignificant and remote Nazareth in order to hide from Herod and from…[those] who so hated Him. So too, in the last times a true [Christian] will hardly be able to find some remote and unknown refuge in which to serve God with some degree of freedom, and not be drawn by the violence of apostasy and the apostates into the service of Satan.

O disastrous time!…O moral disaster, unnoticeable for people who live only the life of the senses, yet incomparably greater than all material, glaring disasters! O disaster that begins in time and does not end in time, but passes into eternity! O disaster of disasters, realized only by certain true Christians and true monks, but unknown to those whom it seizes and destroys!

~Ignatius Brianchaninov

April 19

The crown of every good endeavor and the highest of achievements is diligence in prayer. Through it, God guiding us and lending a helping hand, we come to acquire the other virtues. It is in prayer that the saints experience communion in the hidden energy of God’s holiness and inner union with it, and their intellect itself is brought through unutterable love into the presence of the Lord.

…Just as the work of prayer is greater than other work, so it demands greater effort and attention from the person ardently devoted to it, lest without him being aware the devil deprives him of it….he must keep strict watch, so that fruits of love and humility, simplicity and goodness–and, along with them, fruits of discrimination–may grow daily from the constancy of his prayer. These will make evident his progress and increase in holiness, thus encouraging others to make similar efforts.

~St Makarios of Egypt (paraphrased by St Symeon Metaphrastis)

April 18

Moses indicates figuratively that the soul should not be divided in will between good and evil, but should pursue the good alone; and that it must cultivate not the dual fruits of virtue and vice but those of virtue only. For he says: “Do not yoke together on your threshing floor animals of a different species, such as ox and ass; but yoke together animals of the same species and so thresh your corn” (Deuteronomy 22:10). This is to say, do not let virtue and vice work together on the threshing floor of your heart, but let virtue alone work there.

Again he says: “Do not weave flax into a woolen garment, or wool into a linen garment” (Deut. 22:11); and: “Do not cultivate two kinds of fruit together on the same patch of your land” (Deut. 22:9)….All this is a concealed way of saying that you must not cultivate virtue and vice together in yourself, but you must devote yourself singlemindedly to producing the fruits of virtue; and you must not share your soul with two spirits–the Spirit of God and the spirit of the world–but you must give it solely to the Spirit of God and must reap only the fruits of the Spirit.

~St Makarios of Egypt (paraphrased by St Symeon Metaphrastis)

April 17

You must make it your endeavor, if you wish to attain to true knowledge of the Scriptures, that first of all you acquire steadfast humility of heart to lead you to that knowledge which does not puff up, but enlightens, being made perfect in love. For it is impossible that an impure mind should acquire the gift of spiritual knowledge…

Next in every way must you strive to drive out every distraction and all earthly thoughts, and give yourself assiduously or rather constantly to sacred study until constant meditation imbues your mind and, so to say, forms you after its own likeness….wherefore the Scripture Lessons should be carefully committed to memory, and frequently repeated.

…those passages which we have run through with speedy repetition while trying to fix them in our memory, though at that time we cannot give proper attention to their meaning, afterwards when we are free from distractions of sight and of work, and especially in the quiet of our nocturnal meditations–we can see, as we think them over, their meaning more clearly, with the result that the sense of the most mysterious texts which when awake we cannot in any way understand, is revealed to us in the quiet of rest, and when we are, so to say, plunged into the depths of sleep.

And as our minds are strengthened by this kind of study, the Scriptures will present to us a new aspect, and the depth of their inner meaning will more and more be revealed to us.

~St John Cassian (Conference with Abbot Nesteros)

April 16

The Prophet David says in the person of the ascetic whose carnal mind is still shaking: “I was envious of the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners, for there is no fear in their death;” that is, no affliction rouses them from their spiritual torpor, from their deadly sleep, from spiritual death. “They are not in the labor of other folk, neither are they plagued like other men.”

By men here is meant servants of the true God who have preserved their human dignity. They exercise themselves in pious voluntary labors and are subjected to the Lord’s involuntary discipline. Rejected sinners, living in carelessness, share neither labors nor sufferings. And what is the result? “Therefore hath their pride mastered them utterly; they have clothed themselves in their unrighteousness and impiety.”

All consciousness of their sinfulness is destroyed in them. An immense, incurable conceit makes its appearance. A sinful life becomes their inseparable property, just as if it were their constant garment or clothing, which in turn becomes their disgrace and consists in ignorance of God, in false conceptions of God and of every doctrine revealed by God.

~Ignatius Brianchaninov

April 15

…he who has not been able to understand the things in his own heart, will be much less able to grasp what is outside him.

We must know however, that we are to toil with a twofold end in view, in casting out our faults and in acquiring virtue. And this we hold, not by any guess of our own, but are instructed by the word of Him Who alone knows what His handiwork is, and can do. “Behold,” He says, “I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). For, in casting out hurtful things He shows us four necessities–rooting out, pulling down, dispersing, and destroying; but in the practice of virtue and the attainment of what has to do with righteousness, we need only build and plant.

Hence it is very clear that it is more difficult for passions of body and soul which have become inveterate, to be torn up and rooted out, than for spiritual virtues to be reared and planted.

~St John Cassian (Conference with Abbot Nesteros)

April 14

In this world there are many different kinds of knowledge; their variety is as great as that of the Arts and Sciences. But while all of them are either completely useless, or are of advantage only with regard to the needs of this present life, yet there in none of them which does not have its own peculiar method and system of learning it, whereby it may be attained by those wishing to acquire it….how much more does the study and practice of our religion demand a proper order and plan, the religion that leads us to the contemplation of hidden and invisible mysteries, and aims not at present gain, but at eternal rewards.

The knowledge thereof is twofold; first the practical, which consists in amendment of living and extirpation of vices; and second, the theoretical, which is occupied with contemplation of divine truths, and the perception of all that is most sacred….the practical can indeed be possessed without the theoretical but without the practical the theoretical can never be grasped at all.

…he who does not free himself from the condition of sin strives in vain to reach the vision of God. “For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and He shall not abide where iniquity cometh in” (Wisdom of Solomon 1:4-5).

~St John Cassian (Conference with Abbot Nesteros)

A Pernicious Gravity

What force is this that holds me to my sin?

What hidden power draws me down?

It is invisible, malevolent and constant;

it doesn’t sleep.

We who are given to trudge this earth,

are mired, and filled by this same stuff,

which caught our fathers in its grip,

and caused the first one poisoned by its sweetness,

to fall from his lofty heights—

I am as likely to free myself from its grasp,

as I might bend over, unclasp my feet from the ground,

rise up from the earth, and float into the clouds—

Few things might humble me so deeply,

as the recognition of how ineffective I am,

at resisting my own pride—

It is a pernicious gravity.

But for the fact that you do not see me as I am,

but only imagine me to be as I should be;

because I have been taught and learned to wear,

false clothing which hides this shame—

Were it not for this, my humiliation would be fulfilled,

you would see and then, perhaps, I would have hope,

cast as well into the earth and made to eat dust,

no longer able to pretend, but exposed,

and finally, with no means to hide, no choice but to repent—

then, possibly, freed from this pernicious gravity.

And were a greater one than I to come,

with power greater than this body of sin,

with force and grace exceeding this body’s gravity—

then my soul and spirit could take flight,

by force of love this pride would be thrown off,

and I would be revealed in likeness to my maker—

as I was made to be;

no longer bound by a pernicious gravity.

 

~FS

April 12

If someone seeks for success and pleasure, comfort and glory in this world, then he loves the wisdom of this world. But if someone struggles for what is contrary to these things–if he suffers, practices self-control, and endures all kinds of affliction and disgrace for the sake of the kingdom of heaven–then he loves the wisdom of God. The first longs to attain material benefits, secular learning and secular power, and often suffers on this account; but the second shares the sufferings of Christ. Thus the first places all his hopes in the things of this world, desiring to possess them even though they are transitory and hard to come by; while the second is hidden from ‘the eyes of the foolish’, as Holy Scripture puts it, but is clearly revealed in the world to come, when everything hidden is disclosed.

…the intention of divine Scripture is to speak of things that can save the soul, and to reveal to us the mysteries it contains in itself, as well as the inner principles of created beings, that is, the purpose for which each thing was created. In this way it aims to illumine our intellect with the love of God, and to enable it to perceive His greatness and His inexpressible wisdom and providence, as they are revealed in His care for His creation. Such knowledge makes us afraid of breaking His commandments and conscious of our own weakness and ignorance. This in its turn makes us humble and teaches us to love God and not to despise His commandments, as do those who lack effective knowledge of Him.

…the aim of the teachers of secular wisdom is different, for each is eager to defeat the other and to appear wiser; hence they do not discover Christ, nor do those who emulate them, in spite of all their efforts. For, as St John Klimakos says, God reveals Himself, not in response to our exertions, but in response to the humility and simplicity that come through faith, that is, through the contemplation of the Scriptures and of created beings. On this account the Lord said, ‘How can you have faith when you receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?’ (John 5:44). This is that great faith which makes it possible for us to put all our cares into the hands of God. The apostle calls it the foundation (Hebrews 6:1), St John Klimakos, the mother of stillness, and St Isaac, the faith of contemplation and the gateway of the mysteries. He who possesses this faith is completely free from worry and anxiety, as were all the saints.

~St Peter of Damaskos