Ambrose of Milan: Whoever Reads the Book of Psalms will Find a Medicine to Cure the Wounds Caused by His Own Particular Passions Saturday, Jun 15 2013

Although the whole of Scripture breathes God’s grace upon us, this is especially true of that delightful book, the book of the psalms.

Moses, when he related the deeds of the patriarchs, did so in a plain and unadorned style.

But when he had miraculously led the people of Israel across the Red Sea, when he had seen King Pharaoh drowned with all his army, he transcended his own skills (just as the miracle had transcended his own powers) and he sang a triumphal song to the Lord.

Miriam the prophetess herself took up a timbrel and led the others in the refrain: Sing to the Lord: he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

History instructs us, the law teaches us, prophecy foretells, correction punishes, morality persuades; but the book of psalms goes further than all these.

It is medicine for our spiritual health.

Whoever reads it will find in it a medicine to cure the wounds caused by his own particular passions.

Whoever studies it deeply will find it a kind of gymnasium open for all souls to use, where the different psalms are like different exercises set out before him.

In that gymnasium, in that stadium of virtue, he can choose the exercises that will train him best to win the victor’s crown.

If someone wants to study the deeds of our ancestors and imitate the best of them, he can find a single psalm that contains the whole of their history, a complete treasury of past memories in just one short reading.

If someone wants to study the law and find out what gives it its force (it is the bond of love, for whoever loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law) let him read in the psalms how love led one man to undergo great dangers to wipe out the shame of his entire people; and this triumph of virtue will lead him to recognise the great things that love can do.

And as for the power of prophecy – what can I say? Other prophets spoke in riddles. To the psalmist alone, it seems, God promised openly and clearly that the Lord Jesus would be born of his seed: I promise that your own son will succeed you on the throne.

Thus in the book of psalms Jesus is not only born for us: he also accepts his saving passion, he dies, he rises from the dead, he ascends into heaven, he sits at the Father’s right hand.

The Psalmist announced what no other prophet had dared to say, that which was later preached by the Lord himself in the Gospel.

Ambrose of Milan (c. 337-397): Explanations of the Psalms (Psalm 1, 4.7-8; CSEL 64, 4-7) from the Office of Readings for Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time @ Crossroads Initiative.

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Gregory the Great: The Solitude of the Heart Friday, Jun 14 2013

To whom I have given a house in the solitude? (Job 30:6).

Ought we in this place to understand the solitude of the body, or the solitude of the heart?

But what avails the solitude of the body, if the solitude of the heart be wanting?

For he who lives bodily removed from the world, but yet plunges into the tumults of human conversation with the thoughts of worldly desires, is not in solitude.

But if anyone be bodily oppressed with crowds of people, and yet suffers from no tumults of worldly cares in his heart, he is not in a city.

To those therefore of good conversation solitude of mind is first granted, in order that they may keep down within the rising din of worldly desires,

that they may restrain by the grace of heavenly love the cares of the heart which bubble up from its lowest depths,

and drive away from the eyes of the mind with the hand of gravity, all the motions of trifling thoughts which importunately present themselves, as flies which are flitting around them:

and may seek for themselves some secret spot with the Lord within, there to speak with Him silently by their inward longings, when the noise is still from without.

Of this secret place of the heart it is said elsewhere; There became silence in heaven for about half an hour (Rev. 8:1).

For the Church of the Elect is called ‘heaven,’ which, as it rises to eternal and sublime truths by the elevation of contemplation, abates the tumults of thoughts which are springing up from below, and makes a kind of silence within itself for God.

[...] But it ought to be known that we do not at all reach the height of contemplation, if we cease not from the oppression of outward care.

We do not at all look into ourselves, so as to know that there is within us one rational part that rules, another animal part which is ruled, unless we are made dead to all outward disturbance by returning to the secrecy of this silence.

[...] In this silence of the heart, then, while we are awake inwardly by contemplation, we are sleeping, as it were, outwardly.

Because then men who are separated, that is who are freed from carnal desires, inhabit this silence of the heart, the Lord gave to this wild ass a house in the solitude, that he might not be oppressed with a crowd of temporal desires.

Gregory the Great (c.540-604): Reflections (Moralia) on Job, 30, 52-54 (on Job 39:6) @ Lectionary Central.

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Macarius the Egyptian: Labouring to Enter the Heavenly Jerusalem Friday, Jun 14 2013

How should we be anything but serpents, we who are not found in obedience to God, but in the disobedience which came by the serpent?

How to bewail the calamity as it deserves, I cannot find.

How to cry aloud and weep to Him that is able to expel the error lodged within me, I do not know.

How shall I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

How shall I lament for Jerusalem? How shall I flee from the grievous bondage of Pharaoh?

How am I to quit the foul place of sojourn? How can I deny the bitter tyranny? How can I get out of the land of Egypt?

How can I cross the Red Sea? how pass the great wilderness? how escape perishing from the bite of serpents? how conquer the aliens?

How shall I utterly destroy the heathen within me? How shall I receive the oracles of the law of God upon these tables of mine?

How shall I see the true pillar of light, and of the cloud proceeding from the Holy Ghost?

How shall I enjoy the manna of eternal delight? how drink the water from the life-giving rock? How am I to pass over Jordan, entering into the good land of promise?

How am I to see the Captain of the Lord’s host, whom Joshua the son of Nun, when he saw Him, immediately fell down and worshipped?

Unless I go through all this and destroy the heathen within me, I cannot go into the sanctuary of God and rest, nor become a partaker of the glory of the King.

Therefore labour to become a child of God without fault, and to enter into that rest, whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Christ.

Labour to be enrolled in the church in heaven with the firstborn that you may be found at the right hand of the majesty of the Most High. Labour to enter into the holy city, the Jerusalem that is at peace, that is above, above all, where also is Paradise.

You have no other way to be admitted to these wonderful and blessed types, unless you pour out tears day and night, like him who says Every night wash I my bed, and water my couch with my tears.

You know well that they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. The prophet says boldly Hold not Thy peace at my tears.

[...] For the tear that is really shed out of much affliction and anguish of heart in the knowledge of the truth, with burning of the inward parts, is indeed a food of the soul.

Macarius the Egyptian (c. 300-391) [attributed]: Spiritual Homily 25,6-8, trans. by A.J. Mason DD.

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Theodore the Studite: Fasting Renews the Soul and Makes Us Habitations of God Sunday, Feb 17 2013

The present days of the holy fast are, among the other periods of the year, a calm haven to which all gather and find spiritual serenity –

not only monastics, but laymen as well…., for this period is beneficial and salvific for every country and age of mankind.

At this time every disruption and disorder comes to a halt, and doxology and hymnody are multiplied, charities and prayer by means of which our good God is moved to compassion and is pleased to grant peace to our souls and forgiveness of sins –

if only we shall sincerely turn to Him with all our heart, falling down before Him with fear and trembling, and promising to cease from every bad habit which we might have.

[...] Brethren, fasting is the renewal of the soul, for the Apostle says insofar as the body weakens and withers from the ascetic labor of fasting, then so much is the soul renewed day by day and is made beauteous and shines in the beauty which God originally bestowed upon it.

And when it is purified and adorned with fasting and repentance, then God loves it and will live in it as the Lord has said: “I and the Father will come and make Our abode with him” (John 14.23).

Thus if there is such value and grace in fasting that it makes us into habitations of God, then ought we to greet it with great rejoicing and gladness.

[...] If we desire that the fast be for us a true one and acceptable unto God, then together with abstaining from food, let us restrain ourselves from every sin of soul and body, as the sticheron instructs us in which it is said,

“Let us keep the Fast not only by refraining from food, but by becoming strangers to all sinful passions”.

[...] Let us guard against ill temper and self-assertion, that is, let us not appropriate things for ourselves and indulge our self-will.

For nothing is so loved of the devil as to find a person who has not forgiven another and has not taken advice from those able to instruct him in virtue; then the enemy easily deludes the self-assertive and traps him in all that he does and reckons as good.

Let us vigilantly attend to ourselves, especially in regard to the desires of the flesh; for it is just now, when we fast, that the chameleon serpent-devil fights us with bad thoughts.

Theodore the Studite: (759-826): Catechetical Homilies, 47 @ Orthodox Christian Information Center.

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John Climacus: Let Us Who Are Weak and Passionate Have the Courage to Offer Our Infirmity and Natural Weakness to Christ Wednesday, Feb 13 2013

The man who has withdrawn from the world in order to shake off his own burden of sins, should imitate those who sit outside the city amongst the tombs,

and should not discontinue his hot and fiery streams of tears and voiceless heartfelt groanings until he, too, sees that Jesus has come to him and rolled away the stone of hardness from his heart,

and loosed Lazarus, that is to say, our mind, from the bands of sin, and ordered His attendant angels:

Loose him (cf John 11:44) from passions, and let him go to blessed dispassion. Otherwise he will have gained nothing.

Those of us who wish to go out of Egypt and to fly from Pharaoh, certainly need some Moses as a mediator with God and from God,

who, standing between action and contemplation, will raise hands of prayer for us to God, so that guided by Him we may cross the sea of sin and rout the Amalek of the passions (Exodus 17).

That is why those who have surrendered themselves to God, deceive themselves if they suppose that they have no need of a director.

Those who came out of Egypt had Moses as their guide, and those who fled from Sodom had an angel.

The former are like those who are healed of the passions of the soul by the care of physicians: these are they who come out of Egypt.

The latter are like those who long to put off the uncleanness of the wretched body. That is why they need a helper, an angel, so to speak, or at least one equal to an angel.

For in proportion to the corruption of our wounds we need a director who is indeed an expert and a physician.

Those who aim at ascending with the body to heaven, need violence indeed and constant suffering especially in the early stages of their renunciation, until our pleasure-loving dispositions and unfeeling hearts attain to love of God and chastity by visible sorrow.

A great toil, very great indeed, with much unseen suffering, especially for those who live carelessly,

until by simplicity, deep angerlessness and diligence, we make our mind, which is a greedy kitchen dog addicted to barking, a lover of chastity and watchfulness.

But let us who are weak and passionate have the courage to offer our infirmity and natural weakness to Christ with unhesitating faith, and confess it to Him;

and we shall be certain to obtain His help, even beyond our merit, if only we unceasingly go right down to the depth of humility.

John Climacus (c.575-c.650): The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 1, 6-8, translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore (Harper & Brothers, 1959) @ Prudence True.

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Macarius the Egyptian: Jesus Came to Make the Inward Man Whole Saturday, Feb 9 2013

Let the soul be entirely given up to asking and love towards the Lord, not wandering and carried about with thoughts, but with all its might endeavouring and gathering itself up with all its thoughts, and bent upon waiting for Christ.

[...] The Lord rests upon the soul’s good intention, making it a throne of glory, and sitting and resting upon it.

That was what we heard from the prophet Ezekiel, concerning the spiritual creatures harnessed to the chariot of the Lord.

He represents them to us as eyes all over, as the soul is that carries God, or rather is carried by God; it becomes all eye.

As a house that has its master at home is full of all orderliness and beauty and seemliness, so the soul which has its Lord with it, and abiding in it, is full of all beauty.

It has the Lord with His spiritual treasures for its inhabitant and its charioteer.

But woe to the house whose master is away, and whose lord is not present. It is desolate, and broken down, full of all uncleanness and disorder.

There, as the prophet says, sirens and demons dwell. In the deserted house are cats and dogs, and all uncleanness.

Woe to the soul that does not arise from its grievous fall, nor receive the fair Master of the house, even Christ, for its inhabitant, but remains in its uncleanness, and has within it those who persuade and compel it to have enmity with its own Bridegroom, and desire to corrupt its thoughts from Christ.

But when the Lord sees that to the best of its ability the soul recollects itself, always seeking and waiting for the Lord night and day, and crying to Him, even as He commanded to pray without ceasing in everything, He will avenge it, as He promised, cleansing it from the evil within it, and will present it unto Himself a bride without blemish and without spot.

[...] Take heed to yourself, whether your soul has found the light to guide it, and the true meat and drink, which is the Lord.

If you have not, seek night and day, that you may receive. When you see the sun, seek the true Sun, for you are blind.

When you behold the light, look into your soul, whether you have found the true Light, the good  Light.

All the things which meet the senses are a shadow of the true realities of the soul.

There is another man within, besides the man who is seen; and eyes, which Satan has blinded, and ears, which he has deafened.

And Jesus came to make this inward man whole.

Macarius the Egyptian (c. 300-391) [attributed]; Fifty Spiritual Homilies, 33, trans. by A.J. Mason DD.

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Clement of Alexandria: Christ Deifies Man by Heavenly Teaching, Writing His Laws on Our Hearts Friday, Feb 1 2013

Hail, O light!

For in us, buried in darkness, shut up in the shadow of death, light has shone forth from heaven, purer than the sun, sweeter than life here below.

That light is eternal life; and whatever partakes of it lives.

[...] For “the Sun of Righteousness”… has changed sunset into sunrise, and through the Cross brought death to life.

And having wrenched man from destruction, He has raised him to the skies, transplanting mortality into immortality, and translating earth to heaven….

He has bestowed on us the truly great, divine, and inalienable inheritance of the Father, deifying man by heavenly teaching, putting His laws into our minds, and writing them on our hearts.

What laws does He inscribe? “That all shall know God, from small to great;” and, “I will be merciful to them,” says God, “and will not remember their sins.”

Let us receive the laws of life, let us comply with God’s expostulations; let us become acquainted with Him, that He may be gracious.

And though God needs nothing let us render to Him the grateful recompense of a thankful heart and of piety, as a kind of house-rent for our dwelling here below.

[...] Will you not allow the heavenly Word, the Saviour, to be bound on to you as an amulet, and, by trusting in God’s own charm, be delivered from passions which are the diseases of the mind, and rescued from sin?—for sin is eternal death.

[...] But it is truth which cries, “The light shall shine forth from the darkness.” Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man, that is, the heart.

And let the beams of knowledge arise to reveal and irradiate the hidden inner man, the disciple of the Light, the familiar friend and fellow-heir of Christ.

[...] I urge you to be saved. This Christ desires. In one word, He freely bestows life on you. And who is He? …

The Word of truth, the Word of incorruption, that regenerates man by bringing him back to the truth—the goad that urges to salvation—He who expels destruction and pursues death—He who builds up the temple of God in men, that He may cause God to take up His abode in men.

Cleanse the temple; and pleasures and amusements abandon to the winds and the fire, as a fading flower; but wisely cultivate the fruits of self-command, and present yourself to God as an offering of first-fruits, that there may be not the work alone, but also the grace of God.

And both are requisite, that the friend of Christ may be rendered worthy of the kingdom, and be counted worthy of the kingdom.

Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215): Exhortation to the Heathen, 11. 

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Francis de Sales: Strive Above All Else to Keep a Calm and Restful Spirit Thursday, Jan 24 2013

Anxiety of mind is not so much an abstract temptation, as the source whence various temptations arise.

Sadness, when defined, is the mental grief we feel because of our involuntary ailments—whether the evil be exterior, such as poverty, sickness or contempt; or interior, such as ignorance, dryness, depression or temptation.

Directly that the soul is conscious of some such trouble, it is downcast, and so trouble sets in.

Then we at once begin to try to get rid of it, and find means to shake it off; and so far rightly enough, for it is natural to us all to desire good, and shun that which we hold to be evil.

If anyone strives to be delivered from his troubles out of love of God, he will strive patiently, gently, humbly and calmly, looking for deliverance rather to God’s Goodness and Providence than to his own industry or efforts.

But if self-love is the prevailing object he will grow hot and eager in seeking relief, as though all depended more upon himself than upon God. I do not say that the person thinks so, but he acts eagerly as though he did think it.

Then if he does not find what he wants at once, he becomes exceedingly impatient and troubled, which does not mend matters, but on the contrary makes them worse, and so he gets into an unreasonable state of anxiety and distress, till he begins to fancy that there is no cure for his trouble.

Thus you see how a disturbance, which was right at the outset, begets anxiety, and anxiety goes on into an excessive distress, which is exceedingly dangerous.

[...] Just as internal commotions and seditions ruin a commonwealth, and make it incapable of resisting its foreign enemies, so if our heart be disturbed and anxious, it loses power to retain such graces as it has, as well as strength to resist the temptations of the Evil One, who is all the more ready to fish (according to an old proverb) in troubled waters.

Anxiety arises from an unregulated desire to be delivered from any pressing evil, or to obtain some hoped-for good. Nevertheless nothing tends so greatly to enhance the one or retard the other as over-eagerness and anxiety.

Birds that are captured in nets and snares become inextricably entangled therein, because they flutter and struggle so much.

Therefore, whensoever you urgently desire to be delivered from any evil, or to attain some good thing, strive above all else to keep a calm, restful spirit,—steady your judgment and will, and then go quietly and easily after your object, taking all fitting means to attain thereto.

Francis de Sales (1567-1622): Introduction to the Devout Life, 4, 11.

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Leo the Great: The Mystery of the Magi and of the Star Sunday, Jan 6 2013

Taught then, dearly-beloved, by these mysteries of Divine grace, let us with reasonable joy celebrate the day of our first-fruits and the commencement of the nations’ calling:

“giving thanks to” the merciful God “who made us worthy,” as the Apostle says, “to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light:  who delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”

As Isaiah prophesied, “the people of the nations that sat in darkness, have seen a great light, and they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

Of whom he also said to the Lord, “nations which knew not thee, shall call on thee:  and peoples which were ignorant of thee, shall run together unto thee.”

This day “Abraham saw and was glad,” when he understood that the sons of his faith would be blessed in his seed that is in Christ, and foresaw that by believing he should be the father of all nations, “giving glory to God and being fully assured that What He had promised, He was able also to perform.”

This day David sang of in the psalms saying:  “all nations that thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord:  and they shall glorify Thy name.”

And again:  “The Lord hath made known His salvation:  His righteousness hath He openly showed in the sight of the nations.”

This in good truth we know to have taken place ever since the three wise men aroused in their far-off land were led by a star to recognize and worship the King of heaven and earth.

And surely their worship of Him exhorts us to imitation; that, as far as we can, we should serve our gracious God who invites us all to Christ.

For whosoever lives religiously and chastely in the Church and “sets his mind on the things which are above, not on the things that are upon the earth,” is in some measure like the heavenly light.

And, whilst he himself keeps the brightness of a holy life, he points out to many the way to the Lord like a star.

In which regard, dearly-beloved, ye ought all to help one another in turn, that in the kingdom of God, which is reached by right faith and good works, ye may shine as the sons of light.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 33, 5.

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Angela of Foligno: The Only Thing Necessary is to Find God and Wholly Fix Our Minds Upon Him Friday, Jan 4 2013

The soul, therefore, hears and understands only those matters into the inner meaning of which it can penetrate.

For when the soul is illumined by the presence of God and reposes in God’s bosom and God is in the soul, then is it exalted above itself and hears and rejoices and rests in that divine goodness, concerning which none can report because it is above all intelligence and all manner of speech and above all words.

But herein does the soul swim in joyfulness and in knowledge, and, thus enlightened, it comprehends the meaning of all the difficult and obscure sayings of Christ.

[...] Sometimes the soul is suddenly exalted unto God with such joy that, if it were to endure, I do think that the body would not be able to bear it, but would lose all its members and its sensation.

God often treats thus with the soul and in the soul, and when the soul desires to hold Him fast He instantly departs.

There remains, nevertheless, great joy and assurance in the soul, truly such great joy that it in no way doubts that God is still present, but there is nothing which I can liken unto that seeing and hearing, nor am I able to describe it.

[...] You must know…that there is only one thing necessary unto us, which is God, to find God and wholly fix our minds upon Him. This is necessary unto us.

But in order that our minds may be the better fixed upon God it is needful that we should cast off all perverse and useless habits, all superfluous familiarity with men and women of whatsoever nature, all superfluous knowledge and the desire to hear many new things, all superfluous labours and occupations.

And, briefly, it is needful that man should put away from him all things which do distract his mind.

Then must he instantly plunge into the abyss of his wretchedness and bethink him what things he hath done in times past, what he is doing in the present, and what he will do in the future, and how that his fate in the next world will be according unto his deserts.

Then comes death, which will be unto all eternity. And no day and no night must pass wherein he doth not think upon these things.

Wherefore must he constantly think and meditate and use all his endeavour to comprehend the mercy of God, how that He did most mercifully ordain that Christ Jesus should suffer all this wretchedness with him, and he must take heed that he never forgets this great benefit.

Angela of Foligno (1248-1309): Book of Divine Consolation, pp. 36-39.

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