The Ladder of Divine Ascent: Rung 2

 

I wrote the first part of a series of blogs on the Ladder in the last blog post and I am going to continue that series now.  I had intended to do the first and second rungs together in the same blog but was unable because of the amount of wealth of information that was there in the first rung. Each rung deserves its own special look and I believe taking one rung at a time is the best approach. Therefore, in this post we will be looking at the second rung on the ladder. Like any ladder, the Ladder of Divine Ascent builds gradually as it gets higher and higher. It builds off the last rung and adds to it, giving us more instruction and depth to the ladder as we go higher. Therefore, without the first rung, we would not reach the second, and so on. The second rung is detachment. In the first rung we looked at self-denial and renouncing the world. The second rung builds as I said on the first and teaches us to detach ourselves from the cares of life to focus solely on Christ.

St. John of the Ladder introduces this rung with the following paragraph, “The man who really loves the Lord, who has made a real effort to find the coming Kingdom, who has really begun to be troubled by his sins, who is really mindful of eternal torment and judgment, who really lives in fear of his own departure, will not love, care or worry about money, or possessions, or parents, or worldly glory, or friends, or brothers, or anything at all on earth. But having shaken off all ties with earthly things and having stripped himself of all his cares, and having come to hate even his own flesh, and having stripped himself of everything, he will follow Christ without anxiety or hesitation, always looking heavenward and expecting help from there, according to the word of the holy man: My soul sticks close behind Thee, and according to the ever-memorable author who said: I have not wearied of following Thee, nor have I desired the day (or rest) of man, O Lord.”   St. John wants to forsake anxiety and hesitation to follow Christ with all our strength. I am reminded of what Jesus Christ says in the scriptures saying, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”  St John continues his discourse on the second rung with a powerful statement regarding how we should act in the world and how we should behave saying, “Let us pay close attention to ourselves so that we are not deceived into thinking that we are following the strait and narrow way when in actual fact we are keeping to the wide and broad way. The following will show you what the narrow way means: mortification of the stomach, all-night standing, water in moderation, short rations of bread, the purifying draught of dishonour, sneers, derision, insults, the cutting out of one’s own will, patience in annoyances, unmurmuring endurance of scorn, disregard of insults, and the habit, when wronged, of bearing it sturdily; when slandered, of not being indignant; when humiliated, not to be angry; when condemned, to be humble. Blessed are they who follow the way we have just described, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Finally he speaks about the accumulation of items and material possessions, things that will not in the slightest benefit us on the day of judgment. He says, “If anyone thinks he is without attachment to some object, but is grieved at its loss, then he is completely deceiving himself.  He also says, “The man who has come to hate the world has escaped sorrow. But he who has an attachment to anything visible is not yet delivered from grief. For how is it possible not to be sad at the loss of something we love? We need to have great vigilance in all things. But we must give our whole attention to this above everything else. I have seen many people in the world, who by reason of cares, worries, occupations and vigils, avoided the wild desires of their body.”  The wild desires of the body the passions of this world ensnare us to commit wild acts against the body and soul. The demons desire the destruction of our soul more than anything else. They dance with glee at the death of a sinner and sing jubilantly when one commits sin. St. John of Ladder also says in regard to being called a Christian, “After our call, which comes from God and not man, we have left all that is mentioned above, and it is a great disgrace for us to worry about anything that cannot help us in the hour of our need—that is to say, the hour of our death. For as the Lord said, this means looking back and not being fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The second rung, though shorter than the first, is surely a testament to the great call that is to be a Christian. St. John of the Ladder was primarily writing to monks, but we can learn from him no matter our status. Whether we have been called to the monastic life or called to live within the community. Our call as laypeople is to live the life God has given us. To be chaste in our decisions and to love each other as Christ loves the Church. There will be times when the going gets tough, we will need to detach ourselves from the cares of this world if we are to be successful in our call. We must do as St. John says as he ends this rung, “Let those who run the race imitate not Lot’s wife but Lot himself, and flee.”

Amen