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.
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