Athanasius of Alexandria: We are Renewed in the Holy Spirit Tuesday, Apr 23 2013

St Paul says… ‘I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin.’

[...] This God promised by Ezekiel, saying: ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you.’

When has this been fulfilled, save when the Lord came and renewed all things by grace? … Our spirit is renewed; but the Holy Spirit is not simply spirit, but God says it is his Spirit, whereby ours is renewed.

As the Psalmist says in Psalm 103: ‘Thou shalt take away their spirit, and they shall die and return to their dust. Thou shalt put forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.’

But if it is by the Spirit of God that we are renewed, then the spirit here said to be created is not the Holy Spirit but our spirit…; the Holy Spirit is not created, but…it is our spirit which is renewed in him.

Of this spirit David also prayed in the Psalm: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.’ Here he is said to create it, but aforetime, as Zechariah says, he formed it: ‘Stretching forth the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and forming the spirit of man within him.’

For when that which he formed aforetime had fallen he remade it, coming himself in the creature, when the Word became flesh; so that, in the words of the Apostle, ‘He might create in himself of the twain one new man, who after God had been created in righteousness and holiness of truth’.

For it was not as if another man had been created, other than he who from the beginning was made in God’s image.

But he was counselling them to receive the mind that was remade and renewed in Christ; as is once more made clear through Ezekiel, when he says: ‘Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God.’

Athanasius of Alexandria (c.293-373): Letters to Serapion, 1.8-9.

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John Maximovitch: Have You Ever Observed the Life of the Heart? Thursday, Mar 14 2013

Focus on the Eternal.

Just as a basic concern is to be careful of anything that might be harmful to our physical health, so our spiritual concern should watch out for anything that might harm our spiritual life and the work of faith and salvation.

Therefore, carefully and attentively assess your inner impulses: are they from God or from the spirit of evil?

Beware of temptations from this world and from worldly people; beware of hidden inner temptations that come from the spirit of indifference and carelessness in prayer, from the waning of Christian love.

If we turn our attention to our mind, we notice a torrent of successive thoughts and ideas.

This torrent is uninterrupted; it is racing everywhere and at all times: at home, in church, at work, when we read, when we converse.

“It is usually called thinking,” writes Bishop Theophan the Recluse, “But in fact it is a disturbance of the mind, a scattering, a lack of concentration and attention.”

The same happens with the heart. Have you ever observed the life of the heart? Try it even for a short time and see what you find.

Something unpleasant happens, and you get irritated; some misfortune occurs, and you pity yourself;

you see someone whom you dislike, and animosity wells up within you;

you meet one of your equals who has now outdistanced you on the social scale, and you begin to envy him;

you think of your talents and capabilities, and you begin to grow proud.

And all of this can pass through the heart in a matter of minutes.

For this reason one ascetic, who was extremely attentive to himself, was quite right in saying that “man’s heart is filled with poisonous serpents. Only the hearts of saints are free from these serpents, the passions.”

But such freedom is attained only through a long and difficult process of self-knowledge, working on oneself and being vigilant towards one’s inner life, i.e., the soul.

Be careful. Watch out for your soul! Turn your thoughts away from what will soon pass away and turn them toward what is eternal.

Here you will find the happiness that your soul seeks, that your heart thirsts for.

John Maximovitch (Orthodox Church; 1896-1966): Translated from Pravoslavnaya Rus and taken from Orthodox America, Vol. XIV, No. 2-3. Sept – Oct. 1993 @ Kandylaki.

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Antony the Great: The Holy Spirit Teaches the Mind how to Heal all the Wounds of the Soul Thursday, Jan 17 2013

These things I have said to you, beloved, that you may know how it is required of a man to repent in body and soul, and to purify them both.

And if the mind conquers in this contest, then it prays in the Spirit, and begins to expel from the body the passions of the soul which come to it from its own will.

Then the Spirit has a loving partnership with the mind, because the mind keeps the commandments which the Spirit has delivered to it.

And the Spirit teaches the mind how to heal all the wounds of the soul, and to rid itself of every one, those which are mingled in the members of the body, and other passions which are altogether outside the body, being mingled in the will.

And for the eyes it sets a rule, that they may see rightly and purely, and that in them there may be no guile.

After that is sets a rule also for the ears, how they may hear in peace, and no more thirst or desire to hear ill speaking, nor about the falls and humiliations of men;

but how they may rejoice to hear about good things, and about the way every man stands firm and about the mercy shown to the whole creation, which in these members once was sick.

Then again the Spirit teaches the tongue its own purity, since the tongue was sick with a great sickness.

For the sickness which afflicted the soul was expressed in speech through the tongue, which the soul used as its organ, and in this way a great sickness and wound was inflicted upon it, and especially through this member – the tongue – was the soul stricken.

The Apostle James testifies to us and says, “If any man thinketh himself to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain” (Jas. 1:26), And in another place he says, “The tongue is a little member, and defileth the whole body” (Jas. 3:5) – and much besides, which I cannot all quote now.

But if the mind is strengthened with the strength that it receives from the Spirit, first it is purified and sanctified, and learns discrimination in the words that it delivers to the tongue, that they may be without partiality and without self-will.

And so the saying of Solomon is fulfilled, “My words are spoken from God, there is nothing froward nor perverse in them” (Prov. 8:8). And in another place he says, “The tongue of the wise is healing” (Prov. 12:18); and much besides.

Antony the Great (c.251-356): Letter 1.

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John of Karpathos: It is Christ Himself that We Breathe Monday, Jan 14 2013

Sometimes our soul grows despondent at the huge swarm of its sins and temptations, and says, ‘Our hope is gone and we are lost’ (Ezek. 37:11; LXX).

Yet God, who does not despair of our salvation, says to us: ‘You shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord’ (Ezek. 37:6).

To the soul that doubts how it can ever give birth to Christ through great acts of holiness, these words are said: ‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon you’ (Luke 1:35).

Where the Holy Spirit is present, do not expect any more the sequence and laws of nature and habit.

The Holy Spirit whom we worship is all-powerful, and in an astonishing way He brings into existence what does not as yet exist within us.

The intellect that was previously defeated He now makes victorious: for the Paraclete who in compassion comes upon us from above ‘is higher than all’ (John 3:31), and He raises us above all natural impulses and demonic passions.

Struggle to preserve unimpaired the light that shines within your intellect.

If passion begins to dominate you when you look at things, this means that the Lord has left you in darkness; He has dropped the reins with which He was guiding you, and the light of your eyes is gone from you (cf. Ps. 38:10).

Yet even if this happens, do not despair or give up, but pray to God with the words of David: ‘O send out Thy light and Thy truth to me in my gloom, for Thou art the salvation of my countenance and my God’ (cf. Ps. 43:3, 5); ‘Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth’ (Ps. 104: 30; LXX).

Blessed is he who, with a hunger that is never satisfied, day and night throughout this present life makes prayer and the psalms his food and drink, and strengthens himself by reading of God’s glory in Scripture.

Such communion will lead the soul to ever-increasing joy in the age to come.

Do all in your power not to fall, for the strong athlete should not fall. But if you do fall, get up again at once and continue the contest.

Even if you fall a thousand times because of the withdrawal of God’s grace, rise up again each time, and keep on doing so until the day of your death.

For it is written, ‘If a righteous man falls seven times’ – that is, repeatedly throughout his life – seven times ‘shall he rise again’ (Prov. 24: 16; LXX).

John of Karpathos (7^th century): For the Encouragement of the Monks in India, 81-84, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware, The Philokalia, vol. 1 (Faber and Faber, London & Boston: 1979), pp. 317-318.

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John Ruusbroec: By Gentleness and Kindness, Charity is Kept Quick and Fruitful Monday, Nov 26 2012

From the renunciation of self-will springs patience.

[...] Patience is a peaceful endurance of all things that may befall a man either from God or from the creatures.

Nothing can trouble the patient man; neither the loss of earthly goods, of friends and kinsmen, nor sickness, nor disgrace, nor life, nor death, nor purgatory, nor devil, nor hell.

For he has abandoned himself in perfect charity to the will of God, and…everything that God imposes on him, in time and in eternity, is light to him.

By this patience a man is also adorned and armed against peevishness and sudden wrath, and impatience in suffering which often stir a man from within and from without, and lay him open to many temptations.

From this patience there spring meekness and kindliness, for none can be meek in adversity save the patient man.

Meekness gives a man peace and rest in all things.

For the meek man can bear provoking words and ways…and every kind of injustice towards himself and his friends, and yet in all things remain in peace; for meekness is peaceful endurance.

By meekness the irascible…power remains unmoved, in quietude; the desirous power is uplifted toward virtue; the rational power, perceiving this, rejoices.

And the conscience, tasting it, rests in peace; for the second mortal sin – anger, fury, or wrath – has been cast out.

For the Spirit of God dwells in the humble and the meek; and Christ says: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth – that is, their own nature and all earthly things…, and after that the Country of Life in Eternity.

Out of the same source wherein meekness takes its rise springs kindliness, for none can be kind save the meek man.

This kindness makes a man show a friendly face, and give a cordial response, and do compassionate deeds, to those who are quarrelsome, when he hopes that they will come to know themselves and mend their ways.

By gentleness and kindness, charity is kept quick and fruitful in man, for a heart full of kindness is like a lamp full of precious oil,

For the oil of mercy enlightens the erring sinner with good example, and with words and works of comfort it anoints and heals those whose hearts are wounded or grieved or perplexed.

And it is a fire and a light for those who dwell in the virtues, in the fire of charity; and neither jealousy nor envy can perturb it.

John Ruusbroec (1293-1381): The Spiritual Espousals, 1, 15-17.

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Gregory of Nyssa: Dead to Sin and Alive in the Spirit Tuesday, Aug 28 2012

Ecclesiastes says: There is a time to be born and a time to die.

[...] May we also receive the grace to be born at the right time and die at the opportune moment.

[...] It is necessary to inquire about what is the birth that happens at a right time and what is the death that comes at an opportune moment.

I believe that a birth is right and not out of its time when – as Isaiah says – someone has conceived out of the fear of God and through the travails of the soul in birth generates his own salvation.

For we are in a certain sense our own parents, when through the good disposition of our soul and complete freedom of our will we form and generate and bring ourselves to the light.

We do this by the fact that we bring God into ourselves, having become children of God, children of virtue, and children of the Most High.

On the other hand, we bring ourselves into the world out of due time and form ourselves in an imperfect and immature manner when there has not been formed in us the image of Christ, to use the words of the Apostle.

For it is necessary that the man of God be without reproach and perfect.

If the manner in which we are born at the right time is evident, equally clear to all is the way we die at the opportune moment and the way every moment was, in the eyes of Saint Paul, opportune for a good death.

For he cries out in his writing, pronouncing in a certain way an oath when he says: For your sake we are being slain all the day long. And we bear within our very selves the sentence of death.

Furthermore, the manner in which Paul dies each day is not obscure; he never lives in sin.

He always mortifies the members of the flesh and ever bears within him the mortification of the body of Christ, for he is always crucified with Christ and never lives for himself but ever has Christ living in him.

This in my opinion was the favourable death which was leading to true life.

In fact, he says: I will put to death and give life; in order that he may persuade others that it is really a gift of God to be dead to sin and to be alive in the Spirit.

The divine word – precisely because he has put to death – promises to give life.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): On Ecclesiastes6 (PG 44:701-703); from the Monastic Office of Vigils for Tuesday of the 20^th Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2

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Thomas Aquinas: Renewal Through the Holy Spirit Monday, May 28 2012

Renewal through the Holy Spirit consists, first of all, of the grace that cleanses. Sin is a sort of old age of the soul, and a man is only freed from this old age through justifying grace, by which he is cleansed from sin…: “As Christ has risen from the dead, so also let us walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

[...] Secondly, this renewal consists in the justice that is ever making progress. If one should walk, grow tired, and become weak, and then he rests, his powers seem to him to be renewed; and when a man works diligently, he is renewed when he gains further power for working.

[...]  Thirdly, renewal comes about through the wisdom that illuminates. When a man comes to new knowledge of more of the good things of God, he is renewed. About this renewal it says in Colossians: “Put on the new man who is created according to God.”

The “new man” indicates Christ, because His was a new kind of conception, “not from the seed of man, but from the Holy Spirit”;

a new kind of birth, because His mother remained a virgin after birth; a new kind of suffering, because it was without guilt; a new kind of rising from the dead, because it was quick and renewing, for He rose quickly and in glory;

a new kind of ascension, because he ascended by His own power, not by that of another, as did Enoch and Elijah. And so it is said in Ecclesiasticus: “Show signs anew and work wonders” (Sir. 36:6).

And because all things are renewed through Christ, therefore on solemnities we use new vestments in church, that we may “sing to the Lord a new song”—as though to signify that he who is renewed by the exterior cleanness of his clothing is renewed interiorly in his mind by grace.

By “stripping off the old man,” i.e., the habit of sins with its deeds, “and putting on” the habit of virtue which is not lacking in [good] deeds, “the new man,” i.e., the rational mind, will be renewed “in the knowledge of God” (Col. 3:9-10). As Romans has it, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14).

[...] Fourthly, renewal comes about through the glory that attains consummation, when the body is renewed, the oldness of punishment and guilt being taken away. We read about this in the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;” (Is. 65:17).

And where does this renewal come from? The Holy Spirit. He is the pledge of our inheritance, and it is He who leads us into the heavenly inheritance. He who needs to be created and renewed shall obtain this from the Holy Spirit.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Sermon “Emitte Spiritum”.

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Prosper Guéranger: These Fifty Days of Easter Are the Image of Our Eternal Happiness Sunday, Apr 29 2012

Eternity in heaven is the true Pasch: hence, our Pasch here on earth is the feast of feasts, the solemnity of solemnities.

The human race was dead; it was the victim of that sentence, whereby it was condemned to lie mere dust in the tomb; the gates of life were shut against it.

But see! The Son of God rises from his grave and takes possession of eternal life.

Nor is he the only one that is to die no more, for, as the Apostle teaches us, ‘He is the first-born from the dead’(Col. 1:18).

The Church would, therefore, have us consider ourselves as having already risen with our Jesus, and as having already taken possession of eternal life.

The holy Fathers bid us look on these fifty days of Easter as the image of our eternal happiness.

They are days devoted exclusively to joy; every  sort of sadness is forbidden; and the Church cannot speak to her  divine Spouse without joining to her words that glorious cry of  heaven, the Alleluia, wherewith, as the holy Liturgy says, the streets and squares of the heavenly Jerusalem resound without  ceasing.

We have been forbidden the use of this joyous word during the past nine weeks; it behoved us to die with Christ.

But now that we have risen together with him from the tomb, and that we are resolved to die no more that death which kills the soul and caused our Redeemer to die on the cross, we have a right to our Alleluia.

The providence of God, who has established harmony between the visible world and the supernatural work of grace, willed that the Resurrection of our Lord should take place at that particular season of the year when even Nature herself seems to rise from the grave.

The meadows give forth their verdure, the trees resume  their foliage, the birds fill the air with their songs, and the  sun, the type of our triumphant Jesus, pours out his floods of  light on our earth made new by lovely spring.

[...] Speaking, in the Canticle, to the faithful soul, and inviting her to take her part in this new life  which he is now imparting to every creature, our Lord himself says:

‘Arise, my dove, and come! Winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land. The voice of the turtle is heard. The fig-tree hath put forth her green figs.  The vines, in flower, yield their sweet smell. Arise thou, and come!’(Song 10:13).

Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875): The Liturgical Year, tr. Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B., Vol. 6, (Newman Pr., Westminster, Md, 1952).

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Irenaeus of Lyons: The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the Restoration of the Image of God Thursday, Apr 26 2012

By the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not merely a part of man, was made in the likeness of God.

Now the soul and the spirit are certainly a part of the man, but certainly not the man; for the perfect man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul receiving the spirit of the Father, and the admixture of that fleshly nature which was moulded after the image of God.

[...] When the spirit here blended with the soul is united to God’s handiwork, the man is rendered spiritual and perfect because of the outpouring of the Spirit, and this is he who was made in the image and likeness of God.

But if the Spirit be wanting to the soul, he who is such is indeed of an animal nature, and being left carnal, shall be an imperfect being, possessing indeed the image of God in his formation, but not receiving the similitude through the Spirit; and thus is this being imperfect.

[...] That flesh which has been moulded is not a perfect man in itself, but the body of a man, and part of a man. Neither is the soul itself, considered apart by itself, the man; but it is the soul of a man, and part of a man. Neither is the spirit a man, for it is called the spirit, and not a man; but the commingling and union of all these constitutes the perfect man.

And for this cause does the apostle, explaining himself, make it clear that the saved man is a complete man as well as a spiritual man; saying thus in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians: “Now the God of peace sanctify you perfect; and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserved whole without complaint to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now what was his object in praying that these three — that is, soul, body, and spirit — might be preserved to the coming of the Lord, unless he was aware of the [future] reintegration and union of the three, and that they should be heirs of one and the same salvation? For this cause also he declares that those are “the perfect” who present unto the Lord the three component parts without offence.

Those, then, are the perfect who have had the Spirit of God remaining in them, and have preserved their souls and bodies blameless, holding fast the faith of God, that is, that faith which is directed towards God, and maintaining righteous dealings with respect to their neighbours.

Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century AD – c. 202): Adversus Haereses, 5, 6, 1.

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Cyril of Alexandria: Like Abraham, We Shall Be Called Righteous and Friends of God Monday, Jun 27 2011

Abraham believed in God and that his faith was counted as righteousness and he was called a friend of God.

[...] He heard God say to him: Leave your own land and your kindred, and go to the land that I will show you.

When he was commanded to sacrifice his only son as a type of Christ, he learned God’s hidden purpose.

[...] He was even deemed worthy to converse with God, and he knew God’s plan, which was to be accomplished in the last days.

[...] But now see how events have repeated themselves for those who rise through faith to the friendship of our Saviour Christ.

They too heard the command to leave their country, and that they left it eagerly we know from their own declaration that We have here no lasting city, but seek one that is to come, whose builder and maker is God.

For those who are citizens of heaven are strangers and sojourners on earth; so great is their love for God that they have abandoned as it were their native land, and long for the resting place above.

The Saviour gave them a glimpse of this when he said to them: I am going to prepare a place for you; and when I come again I will take you with me, so that where I am you may be also.

They heard the command to leave their kindred. How shall we show this? We will refer to Christ’s own words: Anyone who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.

There can be no doubt that relationship with God comes before earthly and physical relationship, and that among his followers love for Christ is far stronger than any other love.

Blessed Abraham was commanded to offer his own son to God as a fragrant odour; others, girded with the righteousness of faith, are commanded to offer only them­selves.

Present your bodies, wrote the Apostle, as a living sacrifice, holy and well pleasing to God – that is your spiritual worship.

Of these it is also written: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh, with its passions and desires.

Such people know the mystery that is in Christ, since they know the powers of the age to come, and what will happen at the end of time, when they will receive the rewards of their labours, and the recompense for their devotion to Christ.

Thus, like Abraham, we shall be called righteous and friends of God.

Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444): Commentary on John X (PG 74:386-7); from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Sunday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time, Year 1.

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