The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 7

 

            We’ve reached rung seven of the Ladder of Divine Ascent and have been steadily climbing one rung at a time. We have looked on some very important topics regarding the way a Christian should act and behave in the world. In the last installment of this series, we looked at remembrance of death and how much we focus on the here and now instead of remembering that this life is fleeting. If one has ever been to a funeral, there is often great sadness in the hearts and minds of the people around you. There is not much joy, that is for certain. However, we should rejoice for those that have reposed in the Lord. For their reward is eternal and everlasting. We should also remember that there are going to be times in our life when we have both received sadness and been the cause of great sadness. It is this mourning that I would like to expand upon today. Mourning that turns to joy is the seventh rung of the Ladder of St. John Climacus, often just called St. John of the Ladder as I have done many times. St. John defines mourning as thus saying, “Mourning, according to God, is sadness of soul, and the disposition of a sorrowing heart, which ever madly seeks that for which it thirsts; and when it fails in its quest, it painfully pursues it, and follows in its wake grievously lamenting. Or thus: mourning is a golden spur in a soul which is stripped of all attachment and of all ties, fixed by holy sorrow to watch over the heart.” Mourning therefore is our way of stripping ourselves of all attachments and ties. Now, before I begin proper, I would like to add something about attachment. I have a favorite cap, it’s a New York Football Giants cap that I wear almost daily. However, I am not so attached to it that if it got lost or stolen, I would go t great depths to retrieve it. I understand that it serves a purpose. It keeps my hair in place and also shows my affection of the team that I root for.

            Mourning therefore in this sense is a part of our call to repentance. As I have been writing this series on the rungs I feel as I am standing at the royal doors confessing my sins to Christ and asking God to forgive me for everything I’ve ever done in my life. This St. John says is a good thing. In fact, he talks about compunction immediately after he defines mourning. He says, “Compunction is a perennial testing of the conscience which brings about the cooling of the fire of the heart through spiritual confession. And confession is a forgetfulness of nature, if anyone because of this really forgot to eat his bread.” We must cool the heart. The heart burns for the things of this world because of the corruption of sin that it has endured. We all endure this and cannot escape its grasp unless we let go and let God take away our sins through repentance. St. John says about repentance, “Repentance is the cheerful deprival of every bodily comfort.” We are to deprive ourselves of bodily comfort. This might be in a small way, like not buying a new cap, or new shoes. Other times it might be that we are so obsessed with something that we need to purge it from our life. For example, those that watch Pornhub should reject it entirely as it gives us the bodily comfort of sexual desire that is not founded in biblical marriage. Without repentance, mourning that produces joy is impossible.

            Mourning therefore is not easily obtained. In fact, St. John says as much because he knew the hearts of men better than of the supposed theologians today. He knew it would be. St. John specifically breaks it down into three different stages. He says, “A characteristic of those who are still progressing in blessed mourning is temperance and silence of the lips, and of those who have made progress—freedom from anger and patient endurance of injuries; and of the perfect—humility, thirst for dishonours, voluntary craving for involuntary afflictions, non-condemnation of sinners, compassion even beyond one’s strength. The first are acceptable, the second laudable; but blessed are those who hunger for hardship and thirst for dishonour, for they shall have their fill of the food that does not cloy.” The first stage is most of us, as we have not perfected mourning. We can occasionally control our temper and silence our lips when we have the opportunity. Others react to everything and anything that they come across because of their pride and ignorance. They wish to be the center of attention and refuse to accept the counsel of others. Those who have made progress do not endure the injuries that are caused by others. They do not get angry; they seek to have peace fill their lives as Christ did. I will say this before I proceed to the third stage. When Christ was on trial in the High Priest’s house, they struck him, they blasphemed the name of God, and they brought false witness against him. Christ never once showed any anger towards them. He accepted all as the will of God. This is how we should act. Even now I know that this rung condemns me the most because at the slightest bit of controversy I crumble and flee. Those that are perfect seek humility, they seek the injustice of the world, and seek to have compassion on even the lowliest of sinners. These are those who are closer to climbing the ladder than any one else as they know that all is for their salvation and that God only can judge. An example of this is St. Nektarios.

            So, what do we have when we possess the gift of mourning? The fullness of this rung? Well for starters, St. John says, “If you possess the gift of mourning, hold on to it with all your might. For it is easily lost when it is not firmly established. And just as wax melts in the presence of fire, so it is easily dissolved by noise and bodily cares, and by luxury, and especially by talkativeness and levity.” We often have a lot of talking in the world today. From talk shows to news media, to podcasts, people spend most of their lives talking about frivolous things. From sports, to cars, to the latest technology. People spend their lives and time focusing on pleasure and desire. We have a wealth of information at our fingertips with smartphones and devices, yet we do not read the church fathers, we do not read the scriptures, we do not spend our time in prayer. We seek to fill our time with levity. We watch comedy movies that aren’t fulfilling, we joke about things that would put Christ to shame and yet people do not care and will not care because they do not believe in the power of eternal life. How wicked and perverse this generation is! St. John says, “Do not cease to picture and scrutinize the dark abyss of eternal fire, and the merciless servants, the unsympathetic and in exorable Judge, the bottomless pit of subterranean flame, the narrow descents to the awful underground chambers and yawning gulfs, and all such things, so that the sensuality in our soul may be checked by great terror and give place to incorruptible chastity, and itself receive the shining of the immaterial light which radiates beyond any fire.” St. John also says, “During prayer and supplication stand with trembling like a convict standing before a judge, so that both by your outward appearance as well as by your inner disposition you may extinguish the wrath of the just Judge; for He will not despise a widow soul standing before Him burdened with sorrow and wearying the Unwearying One.” He also gives us one more piece of advice that if I left out I would certainly forget it. He says, “Do not be like those who in burying their dead first lament over them and then get drunk for their sake. But be like the prisoners in the mines who are flogged every hour by the gaolers.”  We are to be judged for our sins. Deep down people forget this, and they do not wish to admit it. If so we are to be judged, let us then prepare ourselves now. St. John says, “Let your very dress urge you to the work of mourning, because all who lament the dead are dressed in black. If you do not mourn, mourn for this cause. And if you mourn, lament still more that you have brought yourself down from a painless state to a painful one by your sins.”

            Finally let us remember the part God plays in this. We have looked certainly at how we should act, but we forget that God too plays a part in salvation. God has given to us the means by which we can achieve the perfection of our souls. Do we freely accept this gift, or do we reject it? One of the blessed gifts is that of tears. St. John says, “In the case of tears as in everything else our good and just Judge will certainly take into consideration the strength of our nature. For I have seen small tear-drops shed with difficulty like drops of blood, and I have also seen fountains of tears poured out without difficulty. And I judged those toilers more by their toil than by their tears, and I think that God does too.” St. John also says, about this, “When the soul becomes tearful, moist and tender without effort or trouble, then let us run, for the Lord has come uninvited, and is giving us the sponge of God-loving sorrow and the cool water of devout tears to wipe out the record of our sins.”

Our actions are what we have accomplished, but our tears show the repentance that we undertake to purify ourselves from sin. St. John says, “Those who have obtained mourning in the depth of their being hate their own life as something painful and wearisome, and a cause of tears and sufferings; and they turn and flee from their body as from an enemy.” Oh how I wish I hated my life that much. I wish I could weep and cry and feel the longing for God from the bottom of my feet to the head of my toes. Instead I sit idly by longing for the things in this world that will pass away. I wish to have things that are not good for me, that are horrible. I still feel the passions well up inside me and I am sometimes overcome by them to the point that I myself flee from the face of God as if I was his enemy. My heart aches for God, and yet I feel like a fraud, a cheat and a liar. I sit here explaining to you how the ladder fits into the Christian life and yet myself I am not worthy to do so. I have not accomplished anything in my Christian life. I am no more than a worthless sinner.

In the hopes that I have not been too lengthy with this reflection on the seventh rung of the ladder, I pray that you have learned something from the mind of St. John. He who understood the life in which we live so much more than we do today. St. John gives us the map by which we can grow our faith in Christ and yet many of us do not journey on the path for fear of failing. We see this in the icon of the Ladder, with some monks progressing forward and others falling off the Ladder. I a humble sinner ask all of you to forgive me who read this blog. I pray that I will have more time to reflect on my own sins and will remember them constantly out of fear of falling away from Christ. May God bless you and keep you. I leave you with the words St. John wrote at the end of this rung. He says, “May he who has been found worthy of it help me too; for he himself has already been helped, since through this seventh step he has washed away the stains of this world.”

Amen.