Category: Uncategorized

September 10

Complete unawareness of the loss of the virtues marks the downward path to godlessness. For the person who habitually disobeys God, through indulging in the pleasures of the flesh, will deny God himself when the occasion arises. In preferring the life of the flesh to God, he places a higher value on sensual pleasures than on the divine will.

All the achievements of the saints were clearly gifts of grace from God. None of the saints had the least thing other than the goodness granted to him by the Lord God according to the measure of his gratitude and love. And what he acquired he acquired only in so far as he surrendered himself to the Lord who bestowed it.

~St Maximos the Confessor

 

The Stranger

I feel that I must explain something to you, although you may not pay any attention; nevertheless, this is something that I feel must be told—for my own sake, and maybe for the sake of another.

 

Most days, not long after I wake up each morning, I no longer recognize myself. I used to see myself in the smile of another, after I’ve said something mildly humorous to them; and I recognized myself in the lighthearted replies of those I met throughout the day.  But I no longer see that, nor do I fully trust it when I do–

 

because my smile used to be genuine, born out of a joy of life and a trust in the wholesomeness and godliness of everything I encountered. I didn’t question this even though there was obviously plenty of empirical information to the contrary (just watch the news for a few minutes).

 

I feel I must apologize to the optimists, and those who still enjoy this beautiful world. I feel as if I’ve left your team, although I can’t say that I’ve left by choice; somehow I feel I was taken, or traded off the team through some cosmic deal.

 

Now my smile is generated by a visitor within me, at the direction of my heart, to save others from seeing the sorrow that exists behind my eyes. And I wonder now, if the smiles of those I meet, are also made by these same visitors, for the same purpose of saving others the pain of seeing the sorrow we each hold inside.

 

God sometimes puts us in a coma, when the pain is too painful to bear, to allow us to heal unconsciously over time. Perhaps I’m in an emotional coma, walking anaesthetized, so as not to explode, or implode along the way.

 

I’ve become a stranger to my life. It is the same world, I’m certain — it hasn’t changed — but I’ve changed, and somehow I don’t fit in my own life anymore. Isn’t that strange?

 

I said earlier that it takes some time after I wake up each day, to lose track of myself — so for a while I am still intact. And this is true, thank God; sleep resets my personhood each night, and I rise in the morning restored. Beautiful sleep, that time and place without anxiety, or the fear of loss. I know this is a blessing, as not everyone can say this; for some the anxiety and fear follows them into their dreams.

 

There is one other place and time where the strangeness of my life falls away, and I recognize myself again—in prayer. Isn’t that beautiful? That time when I seek God and call upon Him — is the same time when I find myself again.

 

I think we should all pray a lot more than we do: for the peace of mind, the joy of heart, and for the love of God.  When we do, we are no longer strangers to ourselves.

~FS

September 8

When conceit about one’s virtue is left undisciplined it naturally generates arrogance, and this induces a sense of hostility to God.

The wrath of God is the suspension of gifts of grace — a most salutary experience for every self-inflated intellect that boasts of the blessings bestowed by God as if they were its own achievements.

~St Maximos the Confessor

September 7

…peace is truly the complete and undisturbed possession of what is desired.

~St Maximos the Confessor

The wrath of God is the painful sensation we experience when we are being trained by Him. Through this painful experience of unsought sufferings God often abases and humbles an intellect conceited about its knowledge and virtue; for such sufferings make it conscious of itself and its own weakness. When the intellect perceives its own weakness it rejects the vain pretensions of the heart.

~St Maximos the Confessor

September 6

If the words of God are uttered merely as verbal expressions, and their message is not rooted in the virtuous way of life of those who utter them, they will not be heard. But if they are uttered through the practice of the commandments, their sound has such power that they dissolve the demons and dispose men eagerly to build their hearts into temples of God through making progress in works of righteousness.

~St Maximos the Confessor

September 5

Nothing so much as love brings together those who have been sundered and produces in them an effective union of will and purpose. Love is distinguished by the beauty of recognizing the equal value of all men. Love is born in a man when his soul’s powers–that is, his intelligence, incensive power and desire–are concentrated and unified around the divine. Those who by grace have come to recognize the equal value of all men in God’s sight and who engrave His beauty on their memory, possess an ineradicable longing for divine love, for such love is always imprinting this beauty on their intellect.

~St Maximos the Confessor

The Shepherd of Swallows

They swirl and they spin,

darting this way and that.

They are hard to follow—

and hard to catch.

 

Like swallows, they

are lively and ever-moving,

and rarely seem to sleep;

and even in our sleep,

they keep moving.

 

Our thoughts—

are never still;

our minds

in motion—

perpetual.

 

We need a shepherd,

and a guide.

 

With words like trained falcons,

the prayers of the church disrupt

our swallow’s erratic motions—

and flying in formation,

they bring our thoughts

into line.

 

How do you catch a swallow

and put it in a cage?

 

Very difficult…

 

But fly alongside—

as they swirl,

be their guide.

 

With prayers,

they will follow

by your side—

 

and find safe

landing.

 

~FS

September 4

The Lord hews out cisterns in the desert, that is to say, in the world and in human nature. He excavates the hearts of those who are worthy, clears them of their material sordidness and arrogance, and makes them deep and wide in order to receive the divine rains of wisdom and knowledge. He does this so that they may water Christ’s flocks, those who need moral instruction because of the immaturity of their souls.

~St Maximos the Confessor

September 3

Everyone, then, who through self-restraint does away with sensual pleasure, which is intricate, convoluted and intertwined in many ways with every sensible object, makes the crooked straight. And he who with patience withstands and defeats the harsh implacable bouts of suffering turns the rough places into smooth ways. Thus, when a person has well and truly struggled, has defeated sensual pleasure with desire for virtue, has overcome pain with love for spiritual knowledge, and through both virtue and knowledge has bravely persevered to the end of the divine contest, he will see, according to Scripture, ‘the salvation of God’: and this will be his reward for virtue and for the efforts he has made to attain it (Isaiah 40:4-5).

~St Maximos the Confessor

September 1

When through self-control you have straightened the crooked paths of the passions in which you deliberately indulged–that is to say, the impulses of sensual pleasure–and when, by enduring patiently the harsh and painful afflictions produced by trials and temptations suffered against your will, you have made the rough ways smooth and even, then you may expect to see God’s salvation, for you will have become pure in heart. In this state of purity, through the virtues and through holy contemplation, you will at the end of your contest behold God, in accordance with Christ’s words: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’ (Matthew 5:8). And because of the sufferings you have endured for the sake of virtue you will receive the gift of dispassion. To those who possess this gift there is nothing which reveals God more fully.

~St Maximos the Confessor