The Architecture of Faith

 

Christos Anesti! Welcome to the first post Pascha article, and welcome to a new Bright Week. As we begin our 40-day celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, here on the Tsar’s Corner, we will be looking at the distinct parts of the Orthodox Church and its architecture as we grow deeper in our faith. I am still currently going through the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem so that will take some time before I begin to start that series. While that series will be posted soon, Lord willing, I will be looking at various aspects of the Church. Starting with the architecture of the Orthodox Church in general this article will clarify the traditions and the reasons behind why the Church is built the way it is and why the Orthodox place so much emphasis on certain items within the church. So today we will just dive right in and explain the architecture.

            Most Orthodox Churches come in the form of a cross, while they can be round, star shaped or elongated. Of course, the Cross form of the church is easy enough to explain, with it being the symbol of the Cross of Jesus Christ. The elongated form of the church is also amazingly easy to explain as the church in its elongated form represents the ark of Noah and the Church as the ship that guides the faithful into the harbour of salvation. The star shape is one I was unable to find any information on, but I can speculate that I has something to do with the Star of Bethlehem and the light of the world. The church proper is divided into three main parts, all with its own unique features. The first part is the entrance to the church, called the Narthex. The Narthex separates the temple from the rest of the church and is where those who are not baptized into the Orthodox Church traditionally would stand. Since there are no pews in a traditional Orthodox Church, the faithful would be allowed to stand in the Nave (Temple) and the non-Orthodox in the Narthex. It also reminds us that we are leaving the outside world and entering into the spiritual world of which we are all called. This is where the candles are lit by the faithful and prayers are said before entering the Temple. The second part, which I shall refer to as the Temple, is the main body of the Church. The faithful in most Orthodox countries will stand and say their prayers in this portion of the church, while in America pews have been added due to cultural differences. During the services, the people will stand before the altar and unite with the Priest and the others celebrating the services here and there are icons and candelabras for the faithful as well. The chandeliers within the Temple are covered in icons, as are the walls and ceilings. In traditional churches a dome with an icon of the Pantokrator will be at the top of the church. The chandeliers in Greek tradition are designed to swing during important services of the Church to symbolize the angels flying in Heaven and that the bodiless powers are worshipping with us during all the services.  Finally, the third portion of the church is that of the Iconostasis/Altar area. The Altar is the most important piece of the church where the divine services are celebrated, and the Eucharist is performed. As I stated it is separated from the rest of the Temple proper by the Iconostasis which is a series of Icons which shield the Altar from view. The Royal Doors in the middle of the Iconostasis are left open for most services as it is a reminder that Jesus Christ himself enters through these doors during them. If one looks on the right of the church as viewed from the Temple, there will be an Icon of the Lord Jesus Christ, an icon of the Forerunner and Prophet, John the Baptist, and of course at least in my church, an Icon of St. Gabriel. To the left of the Royal Doors, is the Theotokos, and the Icon of the saint/patron of the Church. On our Iconostasis there is another angel, I believe again to be St. Gabriel next to the Annunciation Icon. Inside the Altar is the High Table, another area dedicated to keeping the vestments that are worn during the services, and traditionally a place for the Bishop, although ours is located outside the Iconostasis near the Temple, and is elevated so that everyone can see the Bishop when he is visiting the church. In our particular church there is also a place outside the iconostasis for the Chanters. Within the Altar there is placed relics of the saints as we as Orthodox are reminded that all those who have reposed in the Lord still celebrate with us, whether they are physically present on Earth or celebrating the Heavenly Divine Liturgy. In the back of the Altar is a tabernacle where the Eucharist is stored for the sick and the Gospel is placed directly in front of it. There are two cloths the eiliton and the antimension of which both are unfolded before the gifts are celebrated. The antimension has relics sown into it and there are also fans, representing the Seraphim and a golden processional cross within the Altar. Traditionally no animal products are allowed into the Altar and no one without the blessing of the priest may serve within the altar. Personal jewelry is not allowed as well. Seven stick candelabras are also within the Altar to recall the Temple in Jerusalem and the scriptures as well.

            The church is still ornately decorated within the Altar with many icons of the hierarchs and teachers of the church covering the walls behind the Altar. The Icon of Christ is also there traditionally only being hung on the wooden cross outside of the 50 days following Pascha. There also may be a furnace to burn holy things within the Altar as well, and a place to receive holy water which will be added to the Blood of Christ during the Divine Liturgy. The Altar is covered with a linen sheet, just like Christ was covered in linen at his burial and is considered the Baptismal Garment of the Altar. Altar cloths will change during the year as the various liturgical colors of the celebrations of Orthodoxy will change, but the linen altar cloth is never removed. Also the Table of Oblation where the gifts are prepared is inside the Altar. This prothesis represents the cave of Bethlehem and the anointing stone that the body of Christ was laid upon to prepare for his burial.

            Now, while I do have much more to say, I wanted to give a quick overview of what is within the Orthodox Church. There are many other aspects I wish to cover in future articles, so please keep that in mind. The antimension for example warrants its own special article because of how important it is to the service, regardless of whether the altar table has been consecrated for service. The icons, though I spoke on them previously also need to be revisited as the meaning behind why the icons in the nave are chosen is important. Overall the beauty of the Church cannot be accurately described in just a few words, rather it is impossible to describe the beauty. Experiencing an Orthodox Church, especially for the first time, is an experience in which many people become overwhelmed. For our protestant brothers and sisters, they are missing out on the remembrance of all those who have came before us, without the use of icons. We are also spoiled today, especially in western countries where the bible is readily available. For those who are illiterate or those who do not have access to the scriptures except through the readings done by the priest, these icons can help us tell the story of salvation through the images we see. May we always remember that God gives to us that which will help us towards salvation and the Church is the icon by which we can remember all the wonder and splendor of heaven before we reach the harbour safely.

 

            Amen.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 30

 

The journey is complete. The ladder climbed. Enjoy your reward. Well almost. We have reached the finish line of our discourse on the Ladder of Divine Ascent, and before Pascha, which was difficult to achieve to say the least. If we have removed the passions from ourselves, and achieved in our hearts, heaven on earth, then we are ready for divine love. Which in conclusion of the Ladder must be said is the ultimate form for a Christian. I am reminded of all those DBZ fighters trying to achieve Super Saiyan status in the anime I watched as a kid, and this my friends is our Super Saiyan form. It is for us, the epitome of what it means to be Christian. Divine Love. Many understand what Divine Love is, few ever achieve it.

I am often reminded, especially during divine liturgy of how much God loves us. I am reminded of how God is the embodiment of love and that he can be nothing else but love. St. John of the Ladder also knew that for us as Christians we were to be the mini-Christs. As St. Athanasius said, “God became man, so that man could become God.” And this is where it truly enters the hearts of those of us striving for salvation. It is where at this exact moment we become like God. It certainly wasn’t in the Garden of Eden. Before we discuss the portion of the Ladder on divine love, St. John gives to us his own description of the Holy Trinity. He says, “And (as far as I can make out) I see the one as a ray, the second as a light, the third as a circle; and in all, one radiance and one splendour.”  The Trinity is and always be the nature of God. Just as man is mind, body and soul. We cannot talk about divine love without mentioning the Trinity because the Trinity is our purest example of how to behave as Christians. St. John also says, “The first can make and create all things; the divine mercy surrounds the second and makes it immune to disappointment; the third does not fall, does not stop in its course and allows no respite to him who is wounded by its blessed rapture.” ‘

St. John gives us several depictions of the love we are to have for God. The first depiction is this, “There is nothing wrong in representing desire, and fear, and care and zeal and service and love for God in images borrowed from human life. Blessed is he who has obtained such love and yearning for God as an enraptured lover has for his beloved. Blessed is he who fears the Lord as much as men under trial fear the judge. Blessed is he who is as zealous with true zeal as a well-disposed slave towards his master. Blessed is he who has become as jealous of the virtues as husbands who remain in unsleeping watch over their wives out of jealousy. Blessed is he who stands in prayer before the Lord as servants stand before a king. Blessed is he who unceasingly strives to please the Lord as others try to please men.” Having given over ourselves to God in fullness, in completing the Ladder, we now look upon God as our beloved, our spouse. One who watches day and night for the safety our spouse and cares deeply about their thoughts and desires. We sacrifice our own hearts and minds to please and take care of them. We do this through our prayers to God and through our participation in the divine services. We beckon to every call and need of God and forsake ourselves when the King of Glory has need of us. We worship not just physically but spiritually, encasing our whole being with love for God. St. John says, “He who truly loves ever keeps in his imagination the face of his beloved, and there embraces it tenderly. Such a man can get no relief from his strong desire even in sleep, even then he holds converse with his loved one. So it is with our bodily nature; and so it is in spirit. One who was wounded with love said of himself (I wonder at it): I sleep because nature requires this, but my heart is awake in the abundance of my love.” Every moment of our day is filled with the longing to be with God. Though we might sleep because of rest, we do not truly sleep. We awake ourselves in the morning to be with God, so that we might dwell and understand Him more than anything that this world has to offer. In doing this, we are able to be consumed by the all-consuming fire, not for our detriment, but rather for our benefit. St. John writes, “Fear when it is an inner conviction of the soul destroys and devours impurity, for it is said: Nail down my flesh with the fear of Thee. And holy love consumes some, according to him who said: Thou hast ravished our heart, Thou hast ravished our heart. But sometimes it makes others bright and joyful, for it is said: My heart trusted in Him and I have been helped; even my flesh has revived; and: When the heart is happy the face is cheerful. So when the whole man is in a manner commingled with the love of God, then even his outward appearance in the body, as in a kind of mirror, shows the splendour of his soul. That is how Moses who had looked upon God was glorified.” We fear God, not because we are threatened by him, but rather because we fear of losing Him. He is our purpose for living, the reason we carry on. Just as my wife is the reason I carry on day after day and choose not to end my life. In doing so, we now become the spitting image of God and a living icon of the Trinity.

I could and should write more on this particular aspect of the Ladder but St. John has said it best. There is nothing else that we should focus on than that of God. The Ladder is and will be for all time a difficult book for many. Still even after reading through the translation that I used from the internet I am perplexed and even confused by some of the more intricate parts of the writing of St. John. Time will come when an account of our actions will be needed of us, some quicker than others, but all will give account. Having ascended the Ladder and reached the destination, we can now safely rest in the arms of Christ who has been drawing us to the top with His love. The world will seek to drag us down. Through our dispassion, we will come to see this world as fleeting, as void of the things we truly desire in Christ. We come to realize that the demons are nothing more than destructive beings seeking the downfall of God and his saints. But those of us who wish to stay the course, do so out of love for God, and for the chance that we might be the living icons of Christ in this world for the salvation of those around us. I leave you with a quote that is often quoted by people, but one that is powerful. St. Seraphim of Sarov, my namesake said, “Acquire the Holy Spirit and a thousand round you will be saved.” If we follow the ladder, if we strive to do the things that St. John has asked of us, then we will acquire the Holy Spirit. It will be a dangerous journey, but one that has eternal rewards if we stay the course.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 29

 

Okay so we have two more rungs to go. Rung 29 and Rung 30 are the last two that we will be discussing before we move on. I am planning several things and discussions to follow up after I finish with the Ladder, including a possible explanation of the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. However, we will need to finish this first before we can continue on our discovery of Orthodoxy. So with that being said, let us delve once again into the Ladder and ascend to the 29^th rung, the Rung in which St. John of the Ladder discusses Heaven and the role it plays in our salvation. He also discusses the resurrection before the general resurrection at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We have now reached the point in which we are covered by the darkness of the world and the contemplation of the shadow of death. In this I am reminded of the Psalm that reads, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 22/23:4)

Here we find ourselves now nearing the end of our journey. We have climbed the ladder and have not stopped in our pursuit of pure holiness and perfection. St. John realizing that the journey was almost coming to an end, notes that we are experiencing heaven on earth. We have rooted out the passions from our souls, and are striving towards heaven getting a glimpse of it here in our earthly lives. In doing so it must be noted that every time we attend a divine liturgy and experience the prayers and the hymns of the church we too are glimpsing heaven through the spiritual eyes. We are lifting ourselves up to the throne of God and are bringing about a change in our hearts. St. John says, “This perfect, but still unfinished, perfection of the perfect, as someone who had tasted it informed me, so sanctifies the mind and detaches it from material things that for a considerable part of life in the flesh, after entering the heavenly harbour, a man is rapt as though in Heaven and is raised to contemplation. One who had experience of this well says somewhere: For God’s strong men of the earth have become greatly exalted. Such a man, as we know, was that Egyptian who prayed with some people for a long time without relaxing his hands which were stretched out in prayer” In our thoughts and minds and in the hearts of those who have achieved success through the ladder, we have entered heaven. We have detached ourselves from the material things and sanctified our minds. Those like St. Moses of Ethiopia who St. John refers to as the Egyptian have been able to spend long time in prayer and solitude of their soul. St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco was known to stand in prayer before the holy icons for hours and often would sleep in a chair if at all because of his devout and pure understanding of heaven on earth. The soul therefore experiences the divine in a way that those of us including myself have not been able to see because we have not cast down the cares of this world and replaced them with the eternal fire that burns and does not consume. Those that can remove themselves from this world and replaces it with the spiritual world are greatly exalted and are often considered living saints, like Patriarch Pavle of Serbia. They do not wish to be removed from God and are always living in two places, the physical and spiritual world. St. John writes, “He who has been granted such a state, while still in the flesh, always has God dwelling within him as his Guide in all his words, deeds and thoughts. Therefore, through illumination he apprehends the Lord’s will as a sort of inner voice. He is above all human instruction and says: When shall I come and appear before the face of God? For I can no longer bear the force of love; I long for the immortal beauty which Thou hast given me in exchange for this clay.” The actions and the thoughts of the person able to live and dwell in this beauty is one that has God for his Guide, and has from Him, the eternal reward of the life to come. The inner voice of God speaks and moves through this person without hinderance, without obstacles. The person in which has completed the other rungs and the other tasks on his journey into heaven has become the temple of the Holy Spirit, clean and pure. The sanctuary of the heart has been given to Him as an altar in which the Living God dwells as he did in the Temple of Solomon with clouds of smoke and the presence centered in him.

All of this achieved of course, through dispassion, the removal of all cares of this life. That does not mean he has passion for things in the English sense of the word. No, rather his passion, is that for God. To dwell and live with Christ above all else. This is the heaven of which St. John writes in this chapter of the Ladder. He explains, “ Imagine dispassion as the celestial palace of the Heavenly King; and the many mansions as the abodes within this city, and the wall of this celestial Jerusalem as the forgiveness of sins. Let us run, brethren, let us run to enter the bridal hall of this palace. If we are prevented by anything, by some burden or old habit, or by time itself what a disaster! Let us at least occupy one of those mansions around the palace. But if we sink down and grow weak, let us make sure of being at least within the walls. For he who does not enter there before his end, or rather, does not scale the wall, will lie out in the desert of fiends and passions. That is why a certain man prayed, saying: Through my God I shall scale the wall. And another says as if in the person of God: Is it not your sins that separate you from Me? Friends, let us break through this wall of separation which we have erected to our own harm by disobedience; and let us receive the forgiveness of our sins, because in hell there is no one to pardon our debts. So then, brethren, let us devote ourselves to our task, for we are on the roll of the devout. There is no room for any excuse whether of a fall, or opportunity, or burden. For to all who have received the Lord by the baptism of regeneration He has given power to be come children of God, saying: Be still and know that I am God and am Dispassion. To Him be the glory for ever and ever! Amen.” Our sins still separate us from the heavenly Jerusalem. Everything that we hold dear and believe to be important in this life is vain and destructive for the soul. Our hope and salvation comes from God alone and yet, we do not seek forgiveness and spiritual gifts from God that we might be able to enter into the bridal chambers of God. We throw away our lives in search of temporary glory. As the song says, “Live a life you will remember.” But that life will pass away. We do not need to be seeking and finding a life that we will look back on with fond memories, but rather one that has focused on God. Experiences in this life will not matter at the Awesome Judgement Seat of Christ, save those that we have had living for Christ. Not going to Disney World, not going to Yankees games or meeting your favorite celebrity. None of that matters. What will matter are those moments in which you fed the poor, took the Eucharist, went to church when you felt sick and terrible. Those moments. When you have fled from the keeping up with the Jones’ mentality and decided that everything in this life is granted by God to root out the pride and sinfulness that has plagued your heart, then and only then are you able to experience heaven on earth. It is not something that many will achieve and even then, those that do achieve it do not speak of it, for they do not want to sound prideful and lofty. I have spoken often to you, dear brothers, and sisters, of removing yourselves from this world. The only thing that matters is the Church. The only thing that matters is Christ. Without Christ we have nothing. Just be still and know that he is God.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 28

 

In my blog so far we have had two different articles on prayer, and will probably have many more as the journey continues on the path of salvation and orthodoxy. While I have not reached the safe harbour of heaven just yet I pray and continue to pray that my efforts will not be in vain. As we are reaching the top of the ladder, we can now look on all the previous rungs that we have overcome to reach this height. There is still more to go, but we are nearly there. In the 28^th chapter of the Ladder, St. John discusses prayer and what it means for us as Christians. It is not a typical answer one might receive here in the West, with its protestant base and Catholic majority. But one that everyone needs to hear. This is the ancient philosophy of prayer, the early church’s purest and most devout practice. With it, we will ascend to even higher heights than anyone can imagine. St. John says, “Prayer by reason of its nature is the converse and union of man with God, and by reason of its action upholds the world and brings about reconciliation with God; it is the mother and also the daughter of tears, the propitiation for sins, a bridge over temptations, a wall against afflictions, a crushing of conflicts, work of angels, food of all the spiritual beings, future gladness, boundless activity, the spring of virtues, the source of graces, invisible progress, food of the soul, the enlightening of the mind, an axe for despair, a demonstration of hope, the annulling of sorrow, the wealth of monks, the treasure of solitaries, the reduction of anger, the mirror of progress, the realization of success, a proof of one’s condition, a revelation of the future, a sign of glory. For him who truly prays, prayer is the court, the judgment hall and the tribunal of the Lord before the judgment to come.”

Let’s take that first part, being a bridge over temptations, as well as elaborating on the food of all spiritual beings, and expand our thought process a little more as we gather the gist of what St. John of the Ladder is trying to say. First, we understand that prayer is our communion with God. Not in the same way that partaking of the Eucharist is, but rather our conversation and our uniting of minds with God. I personally am the world’s worst at prayer, I tend to only get up saying the Jesus Prayer and will find myself more often than not ignoring the hours and praying simply the Jesus Prayer throughout the day. However what I have noticed through the practice of prayer is that by doing so I am not as easily overcome by the temptations of the devil as I would when I neglect prayer entirely. I also have noticed my anxiety has decreased and that God fills me like a cup as I pray. I also have been more cautious in my thoughts and actions after I pray than before I pray, mainly because I know that I have just entered the courts of God and have directly met with him face to face. I find myself more eager to spend time with God the more often I pray. In doing so, my relationship with God and Christ grows and warms my heart. It becomes for me a kindling of the all-consuming fire in my life so that I am able to ward off anything that is impure and destructive for my soul. Secondly, as the food of spiritual beings, meaning us as humans, it feeds my soul and nourishes my mind in that I can think clearer and harder on things than without prayer. Discernment comes through prayer and prayer through discernment. In doing so, the prayer of the heart is cultivated and the cold dark abyss of the soul is lit with the fire of God and brings about the repentance of the person praying.

Prayer is affected by how you pray. In doing so, you cultivate different aspects of prayer that are available through God to those who seek him. St. John says, “The attitude of prayer is one and the same for all, but there are many kinds of prayer and many different prayers. Some converse with God as with a friend and master, interceding with praise and petition not for themselves but for others. Some strive for more (spiritual) riches and glory and for confidence in prayer. Others ask for complete deliverance from their adversary. Some beg to receive some kind of rank; others for complete forgiveness of debts. Some ask to be released from prison; others for remission of accusations” We see that St. John says that the attitude of prayer is the same, that being humility. Without humility we do not have prayer but rather endless babel that the Lord will ignore. However as we pray there are many things that we can ask for from God. Using my own experience from prayer, I see that I pray most often for the mercy of God to come upon me. That is all I want. I do not seek earthly things or wealth, or titles or confidence in prayer. I know that all those things God dishes out to those who need it more than I do, and I only want to be an outcast in the house of God. I would rather sit and receive mercy for everything I have ever committed than to be famous or to have power. I want the love of God to permeate me and to give me the strength to carry on in this world, not just for the sake of my salvation, but also that I might spend some time helping cultivate others. Prayer is our way of exacting our feelings into words or sometimes inaudible words so that we can stand before the Almighty God with a clear conscience and pure heart. I do not seek to win crowns or glory, only that Christ will say I was a faithful servant on the day of judgement.

Once again I am called back to writing on the Jesus Prayer. In the West, many will drone on and on without really saying anything. We hear people pray for this thing and that thing and may try to flatter God with lavish titles and wording. In the Orthodox Church we do not and have not tried to do that. For that would be heresy. Rather, we speak direct and plain without the need for flattery and wordy prayers. St. John hearkens that belief when he writes, “If you constantly train your mind never to wander, then it will be near you during meals too. But if it wanders unrestrained, then it will never stay beside you. A great practiser of high and perfect prayer says: ‘I would rather speak five words with my understanding,’  and so on. But such prayer is foreign to infant souls. Therefore, imperfect as we are, we need not only quality but a considerable time for our prayer, because the latter paves the way for the former. For it is said: ‘Giving pure prayer to him who prays resolutely, even though sordidly and laboriously.” The quality and time that we spend with God is more important than the words we use. As I have said, the Jesus prayer has become my lifeline to God, and I use it as often as I can for the things that I have on my heart. In that entire statement that I repeat over and over again, I say everything that I need for the Lord to hear me. I do not need to tell God a story and explain every aspect to Him in my prayer. He already knows. What he is looking for is the humility and humbleness of my soul that will lead me out of the dark and despair into the future joys that I will have sitting at his footstool in Heaven. By simple prayer the heart becomes united with the divine and the powers of heaven come to our aid.

St. John says, “Soiled prayer is one thing, its disappearance is another, robbery another, and defection another. Prayer is soiled when we stand before God and picture to ourselves irrelevant and inopportune thoughts. Prayer is lost when we are captured by useless cares. Prayer is stolen from us when our thoughts wander before we realize it. Prayer is spoilt by any kind of attack or interruption that comes to us at the time of prayer.” Prayer is something that must be pure, we cannot force ourselves to pray and to do things that we have no intention of meaning. There have been many times in my own personal struggle that I have seen myself throwaway prayer for the sake of vainglorious things. I have wasted my time and effort on the cares of this world. That is why I am adamant that I should not ask things for myself rather I should simply pray that God who knows everything will give it to me in the time in which he believes best. Wandering minds and thoughts do us no good, for we must be resolute in our prayer and steadfast in our intent. Otherwise we become like the pagans babbling on for hours with no clear conviction.

I have spoken at length about this particular portion of the Ladder, one that is difficult and very easy to misuse if not calibrated correctly. In doing so, St. John has given us a wealth of treasure that is his writings on the subject. I do not believe that even this particular article will do it justice. Only rather I have seen what I have written for the benefit of my own soul and pray also for the benefit of your own. May God continue to guide us and protect us as we enter into Holy Week and celebrate the Glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 27

 

Solitude. In today’s world the people do not know the meaning of this word. That is for certain. We have fast food, fast cars, television, YouTube and various other social media platforms that keep us up twenty hours, seven days a week. This causes us to lose the ability to have solitude in body and soul. We have entered the last trials. The five final rungs, and have passed the rung of discernment and entered the rung of solitude. This does not require just physical solitude, but also a spiritual. We must quiet the passions in order to live a virtuous life. St. John of the Ladder writes, “The beginning of solitude is to throw off all noise as disturbing for the depth (of the soul). And the end of it is not to fear disturbances and to remain insusceptible to them. Though going out, yet without a word, he is kind and wholly a house of love. He is not easily moved to speech, nor is he moved to anger. The opposite of this is obvious.”

As we approach Holy Week, we are recalled to the final week of Jesus’ earthly ministry and his glorious resurrection on Pascha. Now is the time to recall our commitment to God and to focus on solitude. The Church offers services every day of the week during Holy Week so that we can participate in the solitude of the Church. In doing so, even if just for a moment we are able to throw off the yoke of this world and to remain completely silent as we are transported to Jerusalem and the moments that are the greatest of importance within our faith. Christ provides us with the clearest example of solitude within the soul during this time. Being completely human and completely divine, Christ taught us how to not fear the disturbances of our souls and the world around us as we progress our journey towards salvation. The clearest example I can think of during this time, is that of the Garden. In the Garden, Christ was distressed by the coming trials and his crucifixion and sweated blood. But his constant prayer was that whatever the will of God is he would do it. He would fulfill his purpose and the purpose of God. So too when we obtain solitude of our souls we are able to discern the will of God and proceed despite the consequences that will befall us. We live our lives according to the will of God, not man. When we become distracted by the thoughts of this world, we leave the divine grace of God and he will not dwell within us. It is at this point one should repent and strive to continue living in solitude. When he does St John says, “The celestial powers unite in worship with him whose soul is quiet, and dwell lovingly with him. And the opposite to this is obvious.”  That means the angels and the saints and the Holy Spirit of God will worship within us the Triune God. We become the vessels of divine grace and are able to pour out this grace in the world by shining our light for Christ. Not all of us will be granted visions like the saints, but we can rest assured that by allowing solitude within our souls that the angels and all other celestial powers of heaven are surrounding us.

St. John also says, “He who has attained to solitude has penetrated to the very depth of the mysteries, but he would never have descended into the deep unless he had first seen and heard the noise of the waves and the evil spirits, and perhaps even been splashed by these waves. The great Apostle Paul confirms what we have said. If he had not been caught up into Paradise, as into solitude, he could never have heard the unspeakable words.1 The ear of the solitary will receive from God amazing words. That is why in the book of Job that all-wise man said: ‘Will not my ear receive amazing things from Him?” The noise around us is great today, whether it be physical or spiritual. I mentioned all the forms of social media that keep us constantly seeking noise, but so too do the demons have their own form of social media that they try to manipulate the people with. They give us the noise to drown out the voice of God. The voice of God is constantly calling us back to the fold, like the shepherd in search of his lost sheep. The voice of the demons is shouting as loud as it can trying to muffle out God and lead us away from the calming of the storm. In quieting our minds and souls we are able to hear clearly. Thus we become like St. Paul who was brought up into the heavens and heard the words of God Himself.  It is the calling of all Christians, not just monks and clergy to hear the voice of God. We are called to worship at his footstool and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. But without the voice of the demons we cannot discern the voice of God. God’s voice nourishes us, it calms us, it brings peace and hope to the soul. The voice of the demons brings torment and destruction. By using the rung of discernment we are able to clear the path for God.

Finally the most important part of solitude is faith. Without faith, we can achieve nothing. It is not a once in a lifetime prayer or something that magically appears when we accept Christ. That must come in time. We must grow as all things do. We do not magically receive salvation the moment we pray a prayer or walk an aisle. For faith is something that is entirely based on the daily life of the person. One moment you can have all the faith in the world, and the next because of unseen circumstance, you lose it. That is why we must keep treading along the straight and narrow path of salvation brothers and sisters. St. John writes, “Faith is the wing of prayer; without it, my prayer will return again to my bosom. Faith is the unshaken firmness of the soul, unmoved by any adversity. A believer is not one who thinks that God can do everything, but one who believes that he will obtain all things. Faith paves the way for what seems impossible; and the thief proved this for himself. The mother of faith is hardship and an honest heart; the latter makes faith constant, and the former builds it up. Faith is the mother of the solitary; for if he does not believe, how can he practise solitude?”  As I have said many times, there will be trials and tribulations. But with faith, we overcome these obstacles because we know that all things allowed by God for our salvation. Without hardship we see that there is no need for God. We believe that we are not in need of salvation because God has provided all things to us in this life. However, these things will pass away, they will perish when the world is renewed. God will not ask of us how much money or fame we had on earth, rather how much faith we had. Will we say that we had little, and be given little in return? We will we say we had much faith and be given much in return? Or heaven forbid, that we say we had no faith and be cast into the fires of Gehenna? The choice is clear that with solitude comes faith, and with faith comes solitude. We therefore should strive to at the judgement day boldly stand before Christ and say that we have tried to live a Godly life and that we know we have failed, but that our faith was unwavering. For many of us, we will hang our heads in shame because we never did this. I wish to not be one of those, but I know in my heart that I will be. Pray for me brothers and sisters, as I pray for you.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 26

 

We have reached the final ascent of the Ladder. Thirty rungs are difficult to overcome, and if I am being totally honest, then I have to admit that I’ve taken a break preparing myself for the final five rungs of the ladder. Rungs 26-30 are some of the more difficult rungs to overcome as we have been battling our way up the ladder and are now being assaulted head on with the full force of the demons. However, if we are to overcome the last rungs, we must prepare ourselves with the Sword of the Spirit, aka our prayer ropes. We must continue on and pray diligently that God will allow us to be perfected in faith and to reach our final destination (not the movie) …heaven. We have now reached discernment, which is a very difficult thing to obtain, and one that I’m afraid the world is seriously lacking in today. In fact, I would assume with all the transgender and gender fluid movements out there today that people have never even attempted discernment. However, we must obtain true knowledge ourselves and in doing so we will progress up the Ladder. In reading the Ladder I came across this quote by St. John that sets the basis for our discussion today. He writes, “Discernment in beginners is true knowledge of themselves; in intermediate souls it is a spiritual sense that faultlessly distinguishes what is truly good from what is of nature and opposed to it; and in the perfect it is the knowledge which they possess by divine illumination, and which can enlighten with its lamp what is dark in others. Or perhaps, generally speaking, discernment is, and is recognized as, the assured understanding of the divine will on all occasions, in every place and in all matters; and it is only found in those who are pure in heart, and in body and in mouth.”

So once again let us delve into the heart of St. John in this matter. I will once again state, that he is writing to monks, but there is something to be gleaned from this for all Christians. First, we see that discernment is true knowledge of oneself. This allows a person to accept that they are sinners, in need of the divine grace of God, through prayer and repentance. In our metanoia, we can turn away from those things that are displeasing to God and are harmful to the soul. We also come to the conclusion that God has called us to a higher purpose, one that is fully vested in God and not of this world. The hopes and cares of this world will pass away, but our immortal souls will not. Whether they end up in eternal paradise among the righteous, or eternal torment with the souls of the damned, only God can decide. Our hope and prayer is that by discerning those things that are evil from those that are good, we can live a righteous path and obtain the Holy Spirit with which will dwell in us and guide us on the straight and narrow path. There is often talk among the Orthodox that we are the middle path. We do not turn to the right or to the left, but rather stay our course no matter the circumstances. In doing so we are able to see both sides of an issue and come to the conclusion that God has for us. Today we do not have this, rather we have people being either left or right. In some cases we have ultra-left and ultra-right people who have strayed even farther from the path on which God has set for us. So too in the spiritual world do we see this. The demons will either turn us to the left in a spiritual sense, being fully demonic and evil that we are unable to come to grips with salvation and reject in entirely, or to the right, being full righteous and believing ourselves in no need of salvation from God. The second leads us to a path of self-righteousness and pride that destroys our souls even more so than that of the first. In this pattern that I have laid out, I would suggest that St. John sums it up best. He says, “In all our actions in which we try to please God the demons dig three pits for us. In the first, they endeavour to prevent any good at all from being done. In the second, after their first defeat, they try to secure that it should not be done according to the will of God. But when these rogues fail in this too, then, standing quietly before our soul, they praise us for living a thoroughly godly life. The first is to be opposed by zeal and fear of death, the second by obedience and humiliation, and the third by unceasing self-condemnation. We shall be faced by toil of this kind until the divine fire enters into our sanctuary. And then the force of bad habit will no longer exist in us. Our God is a fire consuming all fever (of lust) and movement (of passion), every inclination rooted in us and all blindness and darkness within and without, both visible and spiritual.”

God being an all-consuming fire is an icon present in Orthodoxy and one that speaks to me more than most. For the righteous this fire consumes us and leads us to righteousness in God and His Church, and for the damned, it is a fire that torments and burns their souls with agony. When we allow the all-consuming fire to sweep us and cleanse us of every stain that we have brought onto ourselves we are able to worship and practice our faith with humility and love. It is like the forest that is burned but not consumed when park rangers and foresters set ablaze the trees and grass that otherwise would suffocate and die under the thick tall weeds that have grown around it. It is like the trees that without this fire could not produce their seeds and would not carry-on living. Without God our lives wither and die and suffer not just the first death, but the second as well. For those who are damned, the fire consumes them and suffocates them like a wildfire set in the summers of places like California and Colorado. God wants to grow us, not harm us. And using discernment, we are able to achieve this. Christ says for us not to place our light under a basket, and when the divine fire enters our sanctuary, we are able to shine brightly on this world and enlighten the even the darkest of places. I am reminded here of St. Nicholas of Japan, who leaving Russia for a foreign country, brought the light of Orthodoxy to Japan, in a time where Japan was and still is a pagan nation. His discernment and life by yielding himself to the divine fire of God led a large portion of the nation to Christ and His Church though he had his trials and tribulations. But the divine grace of God saw him through. So too when we reach a difficult point in our lives must discern the truth from God. In his own timing he will reveal what is to be done for His Kingdom and Glory. St. John writes, “Let no one plead his incapacity to fulfil the commandments of the Gospel, for there are souls who have gone even beyond the commandments. And you will certainly be convinced of what has been said by him who loved his neighbour more than himself and laid down his life for him, although he had not received this commandment from the Lord.”  So if the saints, who normal as they were with their own faults like St. Moses the Black, or the penitent thief, called Rakh in Russian were able to receive the divine grace you can too. The moral of this is that you must allow God to work in your life and present yourself as a willing servant of God. Only then will discernment come and will you be able to climb the ladder even further.

We have only scratched the surface of discernment here, in that it comes from God to those who are pure of heart and willing to accept the cross. Times will be difficult, and times will come when you will need to discern things whether they are demonic or from the Lord. We have seen this in the charismatic movement which was led astray by the speaking in tongues. We see this today in the transgender movement and all forms of the LGTBQ+. However the true Christian will seek the will of God and only what he wants for us. There will be no turning away from the faith for those who persevere. May God bless you and keep you forever.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 25

We have reached Rung 25, which has been a struggle for me. You are reading these as they were written and finished, but I must admit as I was writing these it took me some time to finish the final six rungs. The first twenty-four have been relatively difficult to produce a solid article for, as I have been feeling more tired and restless the more, I write. Whether that be as my friend Yianni says, “Snitches get stitches” or simply me struggling by my own feebleness and passions I cannot say. However, I can rest assured that I have not reached humility and that I have not destroyed the passions. I have not become dispassionate and am to judge things clearly and effectively without putting my own biases into the matter. St. John in the 25th rung becomes even more serious as we near the end of the journey. We have climbed so far and can look back on everything that we have overcome, but still though without overcoming the last six rungs, we have yet to complete our journey. The 25th rung is destroying the passions.

St. John writes, “Let all who are led by the Spirit of God enter with us into this spiritual and wise gathering, holding in their spiritual hands the God-inscribed tablets of knowledge. We have met, we have investigated, and we have probed the meaning of this precious inscription. And one said: ‘It means constant oblivion of one’s achievements.’ Another: ‘It is the acknowledgement of oneself as the last of all and the greatest sinner of all.’ And another: ‘The mind’s recognition of one’s weakness and impotence.’ Another again: ‘In fits of rage it means to forestall one’s neighbour and be first to stop the quarrel.’ And again another: ‘Recognition of divine grace and divine mercy.’ And again another: ‘The feeling of a contrite soul, and the renunciation of one’s own will.’ But when I had listened to all this and had attentively and soberly considered it, I found that I had not been able to comprehend the blessed sense of that virtue from what had been said. Therefore, last of all, having gathered what fell from the lips of those learned and blessed fathers as a dog gathers the crumbs that fall from the table, I too gave my definition of it and said: ‘Humility is a nameless grace in the soul, its name known only to those who have learned it by experience. It is unspeakable wealth, a name and gift from God, for it is said: Learn not from an angel, not from man, and not from a book, but from Me, that is, from Me indwelling, from My illumination and action in you, for I am meek and humble in heart and in thought and in spirit, and your souls shall find rest from conflicts and relief from arguments.” We must learn from the fathers of the church. In the west, learning and speaking about the Church fathers will get you a lot of looks. In fact many will question why I quote more of the Church fathers than scripture. While scripture is certainly a factor in how we live our lives, we also know that scripture is to be lived. Those who have came before us have lived the scriptures with their whole hearts and their writings can be very valuable. Here St. John explains that seeking humility he went to the different opinions on humility and divine grace. In it we see that St. John finally sees that humility and the power to overcome our obstacles in life are to allow the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You can read the scriptures and as many books as you want, but without the experience and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, overcoming the passions will not be achieved. We must rest within Christ. Only then can we achieve that which is to destroy the passions.

Secondly St. John writes, “Painstaking repentance, mourning cleansed of all impurity, and holy humility in beginners, are as different and distinct from each other as yeast and flour from bread. By open repentance the soul is broken and refined; it is brought to a certain unity, I will even say a commingling with God, by means of the water of genuine sorrow. Then, kindled by the fire of the Lord, blessed humility becomes bread and is made firm without the leaven of pride. Therefore when this holy three-fold cord or, rather, heavenly rainbow, unites into one power and activity, it acquires its own effects and properties. And whatever you name as a sign of one of them, is a token also of another. And so I shall try to prove what I have just said by a brief demonstration” Here I will take my liberty and use the bread as my example as well, but try to further explain it more precise terms. When one makes prosphora, the person goes into it with prayer and repentance. This is the first step in that we must make a true repentance. So too when a baker makes bread, they prepare themselves by gathering the ingredients. We have been gathering the ingredients by climbing the ladder and learning how to control ourselves with the different areas of our lives that hinder our relationship with God. We must repent and begin with a clean heart. We must make sure that our flour is pure and white before we begin. Secondly, we add the yeast, which the Holy Spirit. For most of us this at birth, when we are entered into infant baptism. For someone like me, this occurred in 2017 when I entered the Church through Chrismation. I received the gift of the Holy Spirit and partook of Holy Communion for the first time. The Holy Spirit entered my body and began to make the bread rise and grow towards spiritual maturity. From there, the bread needs time to rise. You put in a warm, dark place. You let it rise and proof as you wait. So too, as a Christian through prayer and the divine services the bread of our lives is put in a warm place to grow and mature. Over time it gets bigger and bigger until the devil comes along and punches us back down, deflating our spirits and weakening us. But God is allowing us this time to grow once again. You might have let your bread rise several times before it is ready for the oven. Once it is ready for the oven, God allows us to enter the heat of the battle, the oven. From there we enter the fray, and we begin to be heated. This is the most crucial stage. If we have been strong in our faith and are pure of heart, the oven will heat us, but with the Love of Christ. We will turn out perfect and will enter heaven. If not, the fires of the world will burn us, and we get scorched. Some of us will be burnt, but not too burnt and will still be good enough to serve at the Divine Liturgy. Others however will crumble and break and be inedible. Even still the worst of us will be burnt and blackened and not worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven and will be cast out from heaven and into the fires of Gehenna. Though we might take lumps along the way it is the calling of all of us to be perfected in love by God. To let our bread rise and become the very chamber of the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ. I pray that during Lent this season we have grown and become more like Christ.

St. John also says, “Humility is a divine shelter to prevent us from seeing our achievements. Humility is an abyss of self-abasement, inaccessible to any thief. Humility is a strong tower against the face of the enemy.1 The enemy shall not prevail against him, nor shall the son, or rather, the thought of iniquity do him evil: and he will cut off his enemies from his face and will conquer them that hate him” Humility is like the grand castles we see dotting the landscapes of Europe. Built strong and fortified they are difficult to overcome even in the best of weather. So too, when we enter into the Church we begin building our own castle, we must build it with the strongest of materials, the stones that the ladder is built on. When we build the castle, we know the devil will try to assault it. If we have used the information from the Ladder and the scriptures, we are able to combat the devil with every available tool that we have in our arsenal. Some will be better equipped at this, but this comes with experience. The only way in which one truly achieves the grace of God is living. We are not called to be isolationists and remove ourselves from all things, only to detach ourselves from the value that we find in this life. We must practice our faith for it to grow.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 24

 

            “The morning light precedes the sun, and the precursor of all humility is meekness. Therefore let us hear in what order the Light arranges these virtues, for He says: Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble in heart.4 So then before looking at the sun, which is humility, we must be illumined by the light, which is meekness, and then we can look with a clear gaze at the sun. For it is impossible, absolutely impossible, to gaze upon the sun before we have experienced that light, as we have learnt from the order in which the Lord has put these virtues.”  That’s how St. John of the Ladder begins this rung of the Ladder as we are now well into our journey and climbing the ladder in earnest. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the epitome of humility and love. His example is a witness to us all that we should be filled with the Holy Spirit and the love that passes all understanding. In doing so, we must learn how to control ourselves and our pride if we are to make it any further up the Ladder. Let’s look at few statements made by St. John and expand further on how to become a humble person.

            First St. John says, “Meekness is the buttress of patience, the door, or rather, the mother of love, and the foundations of discernment, for it is said: The Lord will teach the meek His way. It prepares us for the forgiveness of sins; it is boldness in prayer, an abode of the Holy Spirit. But to whom shall I look? Even to him that is meek and quiet.”  I would like to point out something regarding the above statement. St. John calls this boldness in prayer. The reason today we do not have the things that we ask for, is not because God does not love us. It is also not because we are not worthy of them. It is because we are not bold enough in our prayer. Being bold in our prayer doesn’t mean we ask for fancy things, or special blessings, but rather that we hold God at his word. That everything and anything we ask in His name will be given to us. Especially because it benefits our salvation and our walk on the straight and narrow path. By being bold in prayer, and learning to be humble and meek, we prepare an abode within our hearts for the Holy Spirit to dwell and rest. The Day of Pentecost comes alive for us again as we enter into the fullness of faith and love. God allows us to work with Him in contemplating our salvation and the acceptance of the gifts, or the rejection. Every day we must make a conscience effort to restore ourselves in the grace of God. Doing so only comes with boldness in prayer.

            The second statement from St. John that I would like to expand on is this, “Meekness is the fellow-worker of obedience, the guide of the brotherhood, a curb for the furious, a check to the irritable, a minister of joy, the imitation of Christ, something proper to angels, shackles for demons, a shield against peevishness.” In our ascent up the ladder, we have discussed a great deal about obedience and imitating Christ. As Christians we are to be mini-Christs we are to unite ourselves with the Holy Spirit in that the mortal can become the divine. Our humility and our meekness is the only way in which one is able to achieve this. As we have seen through the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, and the fall of Satan and his legions of angels, pride is the cause of the fall of all things. We have been granted so much from God that we become greedy and want more. Instead of allowing God to work in our lives, we allow the enemy to protrude our thoughts and to seep his lies into hearts. We want to take from the tree of good and evil, and we want to become greater than the Creator. In doing so we lose this meekness that God wants to see from us. He wants to us to be a minister of joy, rather than ministers of death. St. John of the Ladder says, “God is called love, and also justice. That is why the wise man4 in the Song of Songs says to the pure heart: Justice has loved thee. Also the father of the wise man says: Good and just is the Lord. And of those who are His namesakes He says that they are saved: Who saves the upright of heart; and again: His countenance sees and visits those who are honest and just.” We must constantly remember that we are the namesake of Jesus Christ, the light of light, true God of true God. If we refuse that moniker, then Christ will refuse us. He will say to us that he never knew us. Many will call on his name but only those who live in Christ, i.e., the faithful of the Orthodox Church, will be able to truly grasp the fullness of meekness and live according to the will of Christ. Those of us who have left father and brother and mother and sister to be joined with the Church forsaking all others will be greatly rewarded if we keep on the path. We will not just call on the name of God, but live with God in both spirit and truth.

            Being humble is a difficult calling. We constantly see people wanting credit for the work they’ve accomplished and for the things they’ve achieved. Rather than seeking the glory from men on social media, it is better to receive the glory from God in secret. I have been writing for almost two months now trying to decipher the meaning of the Orthodox Church and how to practically embrace it in everyday life. I have discovered that it is best to be experienced and not read. Though there is nothing wrong with books. Through these articles, I have experienced the faith in such a way that has had a profound impact on me. As we climb the ladder towards its final destination, I see that we have yet to come to a realization that humility and meekness in all things are the root of a solid relationship with Christ. Pray for me dear brothers and sisters as I pray for you, hoping that I can rightly teach the words of Jesus Christ for the benefit of all people.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 23

 

As I have said many times, St. John of the Ladder tends to bring about the last chapter in the Ladder with continuation into the next chapter. While there is a possibility that you could have combined these two chapters into a single step, separating vainglory and pride as two separate rungs of the Ladder allows for a more thorough approach to life and to give the reader an opportunity to prepare themselves for future assaults of the devil as well as the rest of the rungs that we have yet to climb. If we have made it this far up the Ladder as few have, then the view below will begin to give us a picture of the stench and the destruction that we have left for the glory and rewards of heaven that we are approaching. Yes, yes, things are going to be harder here from the top. The more we have climbed the harder the fall from here, but it is not all lost. We can pick ourselves up and we can get back on the Ladder, we just might have to go through a few extra rungs by returning to the place from where we fell.  With that said, we need to explain the heart of the matter of this particular issue and rung on the Ladder. Yes we discussed vainglory in the previous post, but this is all about pride. St. John says, “Pride is denial of God, an invention of the devil, the despising of men, the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, a sign of sterility, flight from divine assistance, the precursor of madness, the herald of falls, a foothold for satanic possession, source of anger, door of hypocrisy, the support of demons, the guardian of sins, the patron of unsympathy, the rejection of compassion, a bitter inquisitor, an inhuman judge, an opponent of God, a root of blasphemy”  He also says, “The beginning of pride is the consummation of vainglory; the middle is the humiliation of our neighbour, the shameless parade of our labours, complacency in the heart, hatred of exposure; and the end is denial of God’s help, the extolling of one’s own exertions, fiendish character.”  St. John also says, “It is shameful to be proud of the adornments of others, but utter madness to fancy one deserves God’s gifts. Be exalted only by such merits7 as you had before your birth. But what you got after your birth, as also birth itself, God gave you. Only those virtues which you have obtained without the cooperation of the mind belong to you, because your mind was given you by God. Only such victories as you have won without the co-operation of the body have been accomplished by your efforts, because the body is not yours but a work of God.” Lets go ahead and discuss these two thoughts

First, we have to understand that pride is the denial of God. Satan and his legions of angels that fell with him denied that God was the ruler of all and thus they fell from Heaven and were cast out. Thus when we are full of pride, we are cast down into the pits of hell and our souls are tormented by the pains we have heaped on ourselves. Nothing we have comes from our own merits, and thus we must understand that is by the grace of God that we achieve all things. When God allows us to suffer for our benefit, then we must do so with humility. When we curse and drag God’s name through the mud, we only heap more pride on ourselves and continually condemn our immortality to hell. When we repent, we repent not just for ourselves but for every generation and every person in the world. When we fall, the whole world falls. If the world could fall through one man, what makes you certain that the world doesn’t fall again every time you sin? Your pride is what makes you blind. It is what keeps others from accepting the truth of Orthodoxy. It was has weighed the world down for all these millennia and yet, we continue to stand here, day after day and build our pride up because we do not wish to see the benefit of humility. With humility comes grace, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the forgiveness of our sins. Without cooperation with God and without fostering the virtues within yourself how do you expect to serve God with a full and pure heart? You just can’t, it is impossible. Therefore shed off your old yoke, the yoke of pride, and turn around your shameless parade of labours into fruitful productive labours and live a shame free life.

Was not expecting such a direct attack again on myself and my heart. The pride that wells up inside of me is immense sometimes and it is hard to control. I have been trying my best to rid myself of all forms of pride and I have not yet succeeded. I pray that through your prayers dear brothers and sisters, that I might overcome this struggle. I cannot seem to do so on my own and ask the Lord to help me.

Amen.

 

Ladder of Divine Ascent Rung 22

 

If the 21^st Rung was where I fell off, knowing my heart and my mind, then there is no way that I have achieved victory over the last of these. Throwing off the yoke of the devil was never easy. It was always going to be a difficult decision and task set before us. Do we flee from that which appears easily and luxurious, to something that appears tiresome and poverty-stricken? Or do we go with the poverty-stricken appearance that is truly luxurious? The question and decision laid before us, is whether we are willing to sacrifice our pride for the sake of our immortal souls. Recently as I have stated, there have been issues with me and my cowardly outlook on life. I have fled from the danger God placed me in, to a place of even more suffering and pain that I could even imagine. But that is what happens when you reject God’s love. The pride that you endure makes you suffer, both physically and spiritually and I have experienced both as of late. St. John says, “With regard to its form, vainglory is a change of nature, a perversion of character, a note of blame. And with regard to its quality, it is a dissipation of labours, a waste of sweat, a betrayal of treasure, a child of unbelief, the precursor of pride, shipwreck in harbour, an ant on the threshing-floor which, though small, has designs upon all one’s labour and fruit. The ant waits for the gathering of the wheat, and vainglory for the gathering of the riches of virtue; for the one loves to steal and the other to squander.” He also says, “The sun shines on alike, and vainglory beams on all activities. For instance, I am vainglorious when I fast, and when I relax the fast in order to be unnoticed I am again vainglorious over my prudence. When well-dressed I am quite overcome by vainglory, and when I put on poor clothes I am vainglorious again. When I talk I am defeated, and when I am silent I am again defeated by it. However I throw this prickly-pear, a spike stands upright.”

So what does it meant to be vainglorious? Well in the above statements its pretty clear. We are a waste of sweat, a betrayal of treasure. We have gathered riches only for them to be stolen from us by our own pride. We are like the man who spends all his hours accumulating wealth and pleasures, only for that very night for his soul to be demanded from him by God. Prayer, fasting, love of your neighbor is good, yes, but in reality, it is not good if you do not have the light of Christ illuminating your heart. Without Christ, everything that we do is for nothing. We could give away everything, we could fast, we could pray and if we don’t have Christ then we are still without. The protestants pray, but they do not have Christ. The Catholics pray, and they too do not have Christ. The Muslims pray and they do not have Christ. Only in Orthodoxy is Christ to be found. We know where the Holy Spirit is, we cannot say where he is not. For the Holy Spirit works throughout the world, but especially through the Church and we know he is in the Church. We pray that by our struggles as we continue up the ladder that we will rid ourselves of pride. If being a coward was one of the steps to ridding ourselves of pride then we must acquire the bravery of heart to proclaim the gospel without fear or condemnation and to dare call God Father. We must pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.” Without which we cannot over come pride. We will continually swim in the cares and destruction of life, without so much as gaining ground. We have to stand firm in the faith. Neither going to the left or to the right. We must remain on the straight and narrow path, the path that leads us to salvation. St. John says, “There is a glory that comes from the Lord, for He says: Those who glorify Me, I will glorify. And there is a glory that dogs us through diabolic intrigue, for it is said: Woe, when all men shall speak well of you. You may be sure that it is the first kind of glory when you regard it as harmful and avoid it in every possible way, and hide your manner of life wherever you go. But the other you will know when you do something, however trifling, hoping that you will be observed by men.”

Oh how much sweeter is it to receive the glory from God than to receive it from men? It is the sweetest of sweet the fragrance of life. The very beginning of the transformation of our corruptibility into incorruption. Let us pray that God through the prayers that we offer to him will accept them and that God will protect us from all sort of pride and destruction. I know that God is on the side of all those who love Him and I pray that I will love Him above all else, sacrificing my own will for the sake of the Kingdom of God. I leave you with this advice from St. John. He says, “When we invite glory, or when it comes to us from others uninvited, or when out of vainglory we decide upon a certain course of action, we should remember our mourning and should think of the holy fear with which we stood before God in solitary prayer; and in this way we shall certainly put shameless vainglory out of countenance—if we are really concerned to attain true prayer. If this is insufficient, then let us briefly recollect our death. And if this is also ineffective, at least let us fear the shame that follows honour. For he who exalts himself will be humbled1 not only there, but certainly here as well”

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 21

 

            Alright so, we’ve reached the final ten rungs of the Ladder. With that being said, the journey has now become for us one of perilousness and frustration. I have unfortunately had to take a couple days off from writing after I finished the last blog, and while there wont be a shortage of posts, I certainly have not felt the same as I did when I first started this massive undertaking. My mind has not been where it needs to be the past few days, as I have been struggling to find the words to discuss the final few topics with you on this journey up the ladder. I understand now why so few make the journey and why even fewer make it the full thirty rungs. One of those reasons is cowardice. In fact there are a wide variety of cowards in the world today, unwilling to stand for their faith and protect the freedom in Christ that we have. People wish for a life of ease and comfort, of peace, of luxury. St. John says, “Cowardice is a childish disposition in an old, vainglorious soul. Cowardice is a falling away from faith that comes of expecting the unexpected.”  We must therefore flee from this, and know that everything comes from God for our own salvation. The demons could do nothing without the allowance from God to do so. Therefore, we know that God is the ultimate authority on all things, the master of the universe. St. John says, “Fear is a rehearsing of danger beforehand; or again, fear is a trembling sensation of the heart, alarmed and troubled by unknown misfortunes. Fear is a loss of conviction” Many of us, including myself are weak of heart and falter and the slightest chance of fear. We lose our conviction from God that his truth is beyond anything and everything that we can comprehend, yet we believe the lies of the demons. We begin to lose heart, and faith and tremble, not from divine power, but from the weakness of our souls. St. John says, “Those who mourn over their sins but are insensible to every other sorrow do not feel cowardice, but the cowardly often have mental breakdowns. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.” I am convicted in my soul of this. My pride has destroyed me, destroyed my life. I have been welled up with pride to the point that I have become a coward. One who flees danger instead of standing for what is right. I have destroyed my own soul for the sake of no confrontation with the enemy. How St. John of the Ladder must be ashamed of me. I do not wish to fight, I do not wish to look my enemy in the face. Rather I want to flee and hide like the apostles did after the crucifixion. I want to be as far away as humanly possible from anyone that has ill towards me. Simply because I am a coward. There is no way around this one. I am a coward.

            But there is advice and hope for us yet, even though we might be cowards. Of that I am comforted somewhat. Despite the fact that I know and openly admit I am a coward. St. John says, “Do not hesitate to go late at night to those places where you usually feel afraid. But if you yield only a little to such weakness, then this childish and ridiculous infirmity will grow old with you. As you go on your way, arm yourself with prayer. When you reach the place, stretch out your hands. Flog your enemies with the name of Jesus, for there is no stronger weapon in heaven or earth. When you get rid of the disease (of fear), praise Him who has delivered you. If you continue to be thankful, He will protect you for ever.” Unfortunately, I am a coward. And St. John calls me what I am. Both ridiculous and childish. I do not wish for this to grow with me, but rather that God will take from me my childish disposition and replace it with a manly and honest disposition. I pray that God will be help me through the use of the Jesus Prayer to overcome my enemies and to understand the statues of God more firmly and more truly. I know that up until this point in my life, I have failed God in this respect and I humbly ask for your prayers. I ask this, because as I have fallen, so too has the world. Every time I have acted in cowardice, the world has fallen that much further away from God, and I ask that through your prayers I might be reconciled back to the Church for not only my sake, but for the sake of the Kingdom of God. St. John says, “My hair and my flesh shuddered said Eliphaz, when describing the malice of the demon. Sometimes the soul, and sometimes the flesh, turns coward first, and the one passes its infirmity on to the other. If this untimely fear does not pass into the soul when the flesh flinches, then deliverance from the disease is at hand. But the actual freedom from cowardice comes when we eagerly accept all unexpected events with a contrite heart.” I have never learned to accept unexpected events. Maybe that’s because I grew up in a household that banded together when times got tough and never really saw them as unexpected events, or because I was sheltered from them or whatever. Now being thirty years old, I realize how much of a coward I am. I am not brave like my friend Yianni, the former marine, turned cop. Nor am I strong and brave like my godfather, who at the slightest turn of events begins to pray even harder, not faltering. Nor am as I strong as my friends, who in the face of being ridiculed and cut down because of their work, took it in stride and did not say anything. Rather they stood there and continued taking the beating spiritually because it was beneficial for their souls. I do not do that. I run and hide and lock my door. We cannot do that. We cannot allow Satan to make us flee! I wish no more to say of this, for it hurts me and pains my soul to think that I have fallen from the ladder at this point. I must climb once again and get through this rung so that I may go to the next rung.

May God grant us hope and peace. Apologies for speaking so much about myself in this blog. I love you all.

Amen.

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 20

 

As St. John often does, he cycles back to a previous topic, only to expand on it further in the next.  As I previously mentioned, sleep will hinder our prayer life if we allow it. Again with all things, being created in the image of God, this means that we too have the power to allow things to happen or not. We choose what we want to do and allow to affect our lives in the sense that if we succumb to the temptation of fatigue, then we have rejected the necessity of prayer. One of the most important aspects of spiritual life is keeping vigil over our souls.  Even now as I am tempted to go to bed and reject finishing this until the morning I know that my thoughts on this matter might not be the same as they are now, fresh on my mind. But here, St. John gets deep, deeper than we’ve gone before. Yes he was writing to monks, but if you replace the word monks with Christians the meaning is still the same. He writes, “Now let us see how we stand before God our King, when we stand at our prayers in the evening, or during the day and night. For some at their evening all-night vigil lift up their hands in prayer as if they were incorporeal and stripped of all care. Others stand at that time singing psalms. Others are more occupied in reading. And some out of weakness courageously resist sleep by working with their hands. Others try to feel the horror of the thought of death, hoping thus to obtain contrition. And of all these, the first and last are in all-night vigil for the love of God; the second do what befits a monk; while the third go the lowest way. Yet God accepts and values the offerings of each according to their intention and power.” Keeping Vigil over the soul means that you are watching it, allowing God to guide you and spending your time worshipping and praising God rather than falling into idleness and sin.

            As we look deeper into the world of keeping vigil, we are looking at the world today and searching for the answers as to how to quench our bodies from falling into to deeper sin and destruction. St. John writes, “Vigil is a quenching of lust, deliverance from dream phantoms, a tearful eye, a softened heart, the guarding of thoughts, the dissolving of food, the subduing of passions, the taming of spirits, the bridling of the tongue, the banishment of phantasies.”  We keep vigil not only to pray and praise God, but also to make sure that we are continually striving towards the openness and the heart filled with the Holy Spirit. Without doing so, we can fall into the trap of the devil and become more like them, rejecting God and filling our lives with pleasure rather than with salvation. Like anything else one wishes to master, vigil takes time and energy and practice. If one believes they are going to be able to keep long vigil on the first time they try, then they are greatly deceived. It takes years of steady practice and growth for people to obtain high levels of vigil and even then only with God’s help. If we wish to seek it solely on our own, then we have lost our salvation without even trying. The demons will rejoice at this because they have seen that their work was not needed to draw one away from God. Furthermore an abundance of sleep does not do the soul good either. As my priest told me once, “You can sleep when you’re dead.” Until then, sleep is simply a hinderance to continuing the fight against Satan and his allies. St. John says, “Long sleep is an unjust comrade; it robs the lazy of half their life, and even more.” We spend half of our lives in sleep and lying down. How much more could we accomplish if we put off the wild slumbers of the enemy and practiced prayer and vigil during this time? How much more could we grow spiritually, singing hymns and praising God? Alas, most people will reject this and call me a fanatic. No, I am not, rather I am someone who cares deeply about God so much, that I would rather sacrifice my own life for the sake of the Kingdom than to lose my salvation in slumber and idleness of sleep. St. John says, “It may happen that continuous meditation on passages of the Psalms is prolonged into the hour of sleep. And it may happen that the demons put these passages into our mind in order to lead us to pride. I would not have mentioned the third case, had not someone forced me to do so. The soul which has spent all day unceasingly engaged with the word of the Lord will love to be occupied with it in sleep too. For this second grace is in a special sense a reward for the first and helps us to avoid falls and phantasies. How much fun and happiness that would bring to our souls to spend even those hours of our nightly slumber with the Lord? But if we do not have the proper heart and mindset, we will be led to pride and our downfall, being puffed up and disobedient towards God. But how often do we dream of things that we have thought about all day? I do that a lot. I tend to think about it continuously all day and suddenly I have a dream that either solves my problem for me, or makes me terrified even more of the situation at hand. So too with God. If we meditate on his words and his commandments all day long, then at night at the hour of our sleep, we will drift into a meditation that will expand our knowledge and foretaste of the divine. But if we are not careful in guarding our souls, the demons will come and hijack those meditations and cause our destruction as I mentioned above. But now is the time to prepare our hearts, our minds for this spiritual struggle. We have ten rungs left after this, the journey is perilous beyond this point. Without the proper guidance, we will not be able to continue. May he who has ears to hear, let him here.

            I leave you with the words of St. John as he ended this rung. He says, “This is the twentieth step. He who has mounted it has received light in his heart.”

Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 19

 

We are now at rung nineteen, and we are dealing with sleep. Everyone likes it, everyone needs it, but is it really the best for us? Well both yes and no. Obviously the Lord grants us recovery from our weakness with sleep. We are able to heal and recover from illness with sleep. Sleep in itself is not a bad thing. However like anything in the Orthodox world, too much of something becomes a bad thing. In the same way, too much sleep becomes a bad thing. St. John says, “Just as prolonged drinking is a matter of habit, so too from habit comes too much sleeping. Therefore we must struggle with the question of sleep, especially in the easy days of obedience, because a long-standing habit is difficult to cure.”  So there we have it folks, Sleep causes us to lose our obedience. Lately I have been having trouble sleeping, rather I have been staying up, reading through the Ladder and through various other texts as I continue to compile my thoughts down, which is why there have been so many articles lately. As such, I have been discovering that through prayer I have also gained energy and revitalization that I was previously lacking. Sleep hinders us from keeping watch over our souls, as it did the apostles during the arresting of Jesus. We see that through this, they were physically and spiritually weak. Not regarding the commands of their master and teacher, who had shown them the devotion to God for those years they were with Him. In turn, they show us what we become when we do not heed the words of the master. St. John says, “Let us observe and we shall find that the spiritual trumpet serves as an outward signal for the gathering of the brethren, but it is also the unseen signal for the assembly of our foes. So some of them stand by our bed and when we get up urge us to lie down again: ‘Wait,’ they say, ‘till the preliminary hymns are finished; then you can go to church.’ Others plunge those standing at prayer into sleep. Some produce severe, unusual pains in the stomach. Others egg us on to make conversation in church. Some entice the mind to shameful thoughts. Others make us lean against the wall as though from fatigue. Sometimes they involve us in fits of yawning. Some of them bring on waves of laughter during prayer, thereby desiring to stir up the anger of God against us. Some force us to hurry the reading or singing—merely from laziness; others suggest that we should sing more slowly for the pleasure of it; and sometimes they sit at our mouths and shut them, so that we can scarcely open them. He who realizes that he is standing before God will be as still as a pillar during prayer and will pray with heartfelt feeling; and none of the aforesaid demons will make sport of him.”  So let’s once again delve into what St. John is saying and why this is important for our spiritual lives.

So the demons have hijacked our sleep. What a surprise. We know, being immortal and incorporeal they do the work of their own master, the devil who when they have grasped a hold of us, try with earnest to bring us down. So why should our sleep be one of the hinderances to their own plans? We see the demons try and develop in us a sense that sleep is good, that sleep will cure us from whatever ailments we have. They also try to use our own frailty against us, creating in us a fatigue that makes us perform all sorts of wicked deeds. From talking in church, to hurriedly singing the appointed hymns to even slowing them down, because it weakens our minds. We yawn, we have shameful thoughts, and we constantly laugh when we shouldn’t. All things I have discussed and pointed out. All this stirs within us the anger of God, that we would violate his sacred commandments over a few moments of respite. When we are appointed to talk our brains become mush and the words that we know and are supposed to be saying cannot come out from our mouths. Sometimes we have overindulged in eating so much that upon waking or before sleep we try to quench the belly for a moment of peace. Instead of taming ourselves we once again fall victim to the passions. Of course, the most egregious, is that when we want to attend church services and the liturgy in particular, the demons tell us that we need more sleep on a Sunday morning and so instead of forcing ourselves to go through with we know to be right, we return to bed, comforted by the warm cozy sheets that we have laid out.  They also try to make us skip Orthros, meaning we miss the reading of the lives of the saints, and we miss  getting to have spiritual food fed to us, for the well-being of our souls. And yet, all of this could be avoided if we merely decided to give ourselves a slap in the face and tell our minds that we can sleep once the job at hand has taken place. Maybe that means waking up five minutes early so you can get to church on time. Setting an alarm, whatever works. The monks would use a semantron to wake themselves up. The alarms on our phones would work just as well. Being able to force ourselves to do something usually yields the best results. And it wouldn’t be a struggle if it was easy.

There is a lot to digest from that quote from St. John. After the next rung, we will be two thirds of the way through and nearing the completion of this monumental task that has been laid before us. If we are to achieve any spiritual growth from this, we must learn to curtail ourselves and sleep. While it is good to rest for even the Lord rested on the seventh day, we cannot fall into perpetual laziness to the point that it interferes with our work and with our spiritual life. Going about our lives with a clear conscience means we must reject the idleness of sinners and force ourselves to do the things God has called us to do. It is difficult to get up at 5:30am on a Monday morning to say the prayers before we begin our day. Even more so when one has worked an eight hour shift and comes home to say the prayers before sleep. Our minds failing from the exhaustion placed upon them from the toils of this life, must be rejuvenated with supplication and prayers. Without this, we will not serve God in the full capacity that we are called to do. May God grant us freedom from sleep that we might serve God in fullness and faith.

Amen.