John Climacus: Love is a Resemblance to God Sunday, Apr 14 2013

He who wishes to speak about divine love undertakes to speak about God. But it is precarious to expatiate on God, and may even be dangerous for the unwary.

The angels know how to speak about love, and even they can only do this according to the degree of their enlightenment.

God is love. So he who wishes to define this, tries with bleary eyes to measure the sand in the ocean.

Love, by reason of its nature, is a resemblance to God, as far as that is possible for mortals; in its activity it is inebriation of the soul; and by its distinctive property it is a fountain of faith, an abyss of patience, a sea of humility.

Love is essentially the banishment of every kind of contrary thought for love thinks no evil.

Love, dispassion and adoption are distinguished as sons from one another by name, and name only.

Just as light, fire and flame combine to form one power, it is the same with love, dispassion and adoption.

As love wanes, fear appears; because he who has no fear is either filled with love or dead in soul.

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.

Even a mother does not so cling to the babe at her breast as a son of love clings to the Lord at all times.

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.

John Climacus (c.575-c.650): The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 30, 4-13, translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore (Harper & Brothers, 1959) @ Prudence True.

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Symeon the New Theologian: God’s Compassion and Adam’s Foolishness Saturday, Mar 23 2013

“And God said to Adam [after he disobeyed], Adam where are you?” (Gen. 3:9).

Why did the omnipotent Creator ask this? Certainly desiring to help him understand his mistake and lead him to repentance.

“Adam, where are you?” It is as if He was saying: Examine yourself; take a look at your nakedness! Consider the cloak and the glory of which you have been deprived.

“Adam, where are you?” It is as if He was pleading with him and urging: Please, come to your senses, you poor man. Please, come out of your hiding spot. Do you think you can hide from Me?

Say, “I have sinned!” Unfortunately, Adam said no such thing. Instead, he said, “I heard You walking in Paradise, and I realized that I am naked and I hid.”

How did God reply? “Who told you that you are naked? Did you perhaps eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Do you see, beloved reader, God’s patience? When He asked, “Adam, where are you?” Adam did not confess his sin straightaway, but said, “I heard Your voice Lord, and I realized that I am naked and I hid.”

Even with such a dishonest response, God did not become mad, He did not immediately and definitively turn away from him; on the contrary, He gave him a second chance to admit his fault.

“Who told you that you are naked? Did you perhaps eat from the only tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Take note of the depth of God’s wisdom and words. “Why are you announcing your nakedness, but concealing your sin?”

He says to Adam. “Do you think that I am able to see only your body but unable to see your heart and thoughts as well?”

Adam…was hoping that God would remain unaware of his sin, and he thought…:

“If I say that I am naked, since God is unaware, He will ask me why I am naked? Then I will tell him, ‘I have no idea.’ Thus, I will elude Him and I will enjoy my original garment once again. Even if He doesn’t give me another garment, at least He will not expel me; at least He will not exile me!”

[...] God, however, did not want him to become any more blameworthy, so He asked, “How did you realize that you are naked. Did you perhaps eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

It is as if he was saying: Do you really believe that you can hide from Me? Do you think I am unaware of what you did? You don’t want to say, “I have sinned”?

You poor man! Say, “Yes, Lord. Indeed I have transgressed Your commandment…. Have mercy on me!”

Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022 AD); fuller version @ Discerning Thoughts and St Nektarios Monastery.

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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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Cyril of Alexandria: Christ Offered Himself for Us, and of His Own Free Will Submitted to Death, Confounding the Destroyer Friday, Mar 8 2013

When Christ saw the human race being destroyed by death he became our advocate with the Father.

He offered himself for us and of his own free will submitted to death, confounding the destroyer by saying the sin was his.

This does not mean that he himself had committed it, but that as the Scriptures say: He bore our sins and suffered for our sake, and he was taken for a criminal. 

He was innocent, but for our sake he became accursed. 

David said the shepherd ought to suffer rather than the sheep, and Christ like a good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep.

In obedience to God’s command blessed David set up an altar in the place where he had seen the angel of destruction stop, and he offered God holocausts and peace offerings.

By this place, which was a threshing floor, you must understand the Church, for it is there that death was halted and overcome, there that the destroyer stayed his once terrible and devastating hand.

For the Church is the dwelling place of him who is life by his very nature – that is, of Christ.

By way of simile or comparison we call the Church a threshing floor, because there are gathered, like sheaves of wheat, those cut off from the life of this world by the word of holy reapers, that is, of the apostles and evangelists.

Then, when all useless and unnecessary thoughts and actions, which may be thought of as chaff, have been removed, they are to be carried up like winnowed grain into the courts above in the heavenly Jerusalem, into what we may call the granary of the Lord.

Christ asked his holy apostles…: The harvest is plentiful, but the la borers are few. You must therefore beg the Lord of the harvest to send people out to reap it.

Now as I understand it, the harvest Christ spoke of is a spiritual one, namely, the great multitude of those who would one day believe in him.

The holy reapers are those who have in their minds and on their tongues the word of God, which is living and active, and cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword, piercing to the meeting place of soul and spirit, to the innermost recesses of our being.

Christ purchased the spiritual threshing floor which is the Church for fifty shekels: in other words, he paid for it dearly.

He gave himself for the Church, he set up an altar within it, and since he was both the priest and the sacrifice, he offered himself as though he were the beast that treads out the grain, and he became a holocaust and a peace offering.

Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444): The Adoration and Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth, Bk. 8 (PG 68:269-292); from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Lent  @ Dom Donald’s Blog.

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Francis de Sales: Trifling Temptations which Flit Around like Flies or Gnats Tuesday, Mar 5 2013

Now as to all these trifling temptations of vanity, suspicion, vexation, jealousy, envy, and the like, which flit around one like flies or gnats, now settling on one’s nose,—anon stinging one’s cheek,—as it is wholly impossible altogether to free one’s-self from their importunity.

The best resistance one can make is not to be fretted by them. All these things may worry one, but they cannot really harm us, so long as our wills are firmly resolved to serve God.

Therefore despise all these trivial onslaughts, and do not even deign to think about them; but let them buzz about your ears as much as they please, and flit hither and thither just as you tolerate flies.

Even if they sting you, and strive to light within your heart, do no more than simply remove them, not fighting with them, or arguing, but simply doing that which is precisely contrary to their suggestions, and specially making acts of the Love of God.

If you will take my advice, you will not toil on obstinately in resisting them by exercising the contrary virtue, for that would become a sort of struggle with the foe.

But, after making an act of this directly contrary virtue (always supposing you have time to recognise what the definite temptation is), simply turn with your whole heart towards Jesus Christ Crucified, and lovingly kiss His Sacred Feet.

This is the best way to conquer the Enemy, whether in small or great temptations. For, inasmuch as the Love of God contains the perfection of every virtue, and that more excellently than the very virtues themselves, it is also the most sovereign remedy against all vice.

And, if you accustom your mind under all manner of temptation to have recourse to this safety-place, you will not be constrained to enter upon a worryingly minute investigation of your temptations, but, so soon as you are anywise troubled, your mind will turn naturally to its one sovereign remedy.

Moreover, this way of dealing with temptation is so offensive to the Evil One, that, finding he does but provoke souls to an increased love of God by his assaults, he discontinues them.

In short, you may be sure that if you dally with your minor, oft-recurring temptations, and examine too closely into them in detail, you will simply stupefy yourself to no purpose.

Francis de Sales (1567-1622): Introduction to the Devout Life, 4, 9.

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Bede the Venerable: Turbulent Thoughts During Prayer Thursday, Feb 28 2013

(On Matthew 15:21-28 – the story of the Canaanite woman).

There are some who, upon entering a church, stretch out their psalm-singing or their prayer with many words, but because their heart is directed elsewhere, they do not even reflect upon what they are saying.

They pray, to be sure, with their mouths, but they deprive their mind, which is wandering outside, of all the fruit of their prayer.

The ancient enemy…is aware of the benefit of praying, and he envies human beings the gift of having their requests granted, so he sends upon those who are praying many kinds of frivolous thoughts, and sometimes too phantasms of things that shameful and harmful.

By these he can interfere with prayer in such a way that occasionally, when we are prostrated in prayer, we may endure great surges of thoughts which run every which way.

[...] We must take care to triumph over the acknowledged malice of the devil, clearing our mind, as far as we can, of every sort of cloud which the enemy rejoices in sprinkling about, and begging for the continuing protection of the benevolent Defender, who is able to grant to those entreating him, no matter how unworthy they are, both the grace of praying in a pure way, and that of having their requests granted completely.

It will help the purity of our prayer a great deal if in every place and time we restrain ourselves from forbidden acts, if we always check our hearing along with our speaking with regard to idle conversation, if we habituate ourselves to walking in the law of the Lord and scrutinizing his testimonies with all our heart (Psalm 118:1-2).

Whatever things we are accustomed to do, speak, or hear most often, these same things will necessarily return to our mind most often as though to their accustomed and proper place.

And just as pigs are accustomed to frequent marshy wallowing places, and doves to frequent clear flowing streams, so too impure thoughts disturb an unclean mind, and spiritual thoughts sanctify a chaste one.

If, after the example of the Caananite woman, we continue resolutely in our praying, and remain of fixed purpose, certainly the grace of our Maker will be with us to correct everything in us which is wrong, to sanctify everything unclean, and to make serene everything which is turbulent.

He is faithful and just, so that he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from every iniquity, if with the attentive voice of our mind we cry out to him who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for all ages and ages.

The Venerable Bede (672/4-735): Homilies on the Gospels, 1:22 (Lent), “Homilies on the Gospels, Book One, Advent to Lent”, trans. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst OSB (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991) @ Lectionary Central.

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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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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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Nikolai Velimirovich: “My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord” Sunday, Dec 23 2012

And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38)….

If a handmaid is she who, with intent and with complete attention, beholds her Lord, then again the Most-holy Virgin is the first among the handmaids of the Lord.

[...] She did not care to please the world, but only God; nor did she care to justify herself before the world, but only before God. She herself is obedience; she herself is service; she herself is meekness.

The Most-holy Virgin could in truth say to the angel of God: Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

The greatest perfection, and the greatest honor that a woman can attain on earth, is to be a handmaid of the Lord. Eve lost this perfection and honor in Paradise without effort, and the Virgin Mary achieved this perfection and this honor outside Paradise with her efforts.

My soul doth magnify the Lord (Luke 1:46).

Brethren, we have in total only a few words spoken by the Most-holy Theotokos recorded in the Gospels.

All of her words pertain to the magnification of God. She was silent before men but her soul conversed unceasingly with God. Every day and every hour, she found a new reason and incentive to magnify God.

If only we were able to know and to record all her magnifications of God throughout her whole life, oh, how many books would it take!

But, even by this one magnification, which she spoke before her kinswoman Elizabeth, the mother of the great Prophet and Forerunner John, every Christian can evaluate what a fragrant and God-pleasing flower was her most holy soul.

This is but one wonderful canticle of the soul of the Theotokos, which has come down to us through the Gospel. However, such canticles were without number in the course of the life of the Most-blessed One.

Even before she heard the Gospel from the lips of her Son, she knew how to speak with God and to glorify Him in accordance with the teaching of the Gospel.

This knowledge came to her from the Holy Spirit of God, whose grace constantly poured into her like clear water into a pure vessel.

Her soul magnified God with canticles throughout her whole life, and therefore God magnified her above the Cherubim and the Seraphim.

Likewise, small and sinful as we are, the same Lord will magnify in His Kingdom us who magnify her, if we exert ourselves to fill this brief life with the magnification of God in our deeds, words, thoughts and prayers.

O Most-holy, Most-pure and Most-blessed Theotokos, cover us with the wings of thy prayers.

Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956; Orthodox Church): Prologue from Ohrid, December 26^th and 27^th OS.

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John Henry Newman: Eve Gazed and Reflected When She Should have Fled Saturday, Dec 1 2012

The great thing in religion is to set off well; to resist the beginnings of sin, to flee temptation, to avoid the company of the wicked.

“Enter not into the path of the wicked … avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, pass away.”

And for this reason, first of all, because it is hardly possible to delay our flight without rendering flight impossible.

When I say, resist the beginnings of evil, I do not mean the first act merely, but the rising thought of evil.

Whatever the temptation may be, there may be no time to wait and gaze, without being caught.

[...] Directly we are made aware of the temptation, we shall, if we are wise, turn our backs upon it, without waiting to think and reason about it; we shall engage our mind in other thoughts.

[...] For consider, in the next place, what must in all cases be the consequence of allowing evil thoughts to be present to us, though we do not actually admit them into our hearts.

This: namely—we shall make ourselves familiar with them.

Now our great security against sin lies in being shocked at it. Eve gazed and reflected when she should have fled.

It is sometimes said, “Second thoughts are best.” This is true in many cases; but there are times when it is very false, and when, on the contrary, first thoughts are best.

For sin is like the serpent, which seduced our first parents. We know that some serpents have the power of what is called “fascinating.”

Their eye has the power of subduing—nay, in a strange way, of alluring—their victim, who is reduced to utter helplessness, cannot flee away, nay, rather is obliged to approach, and (as it were) deliver himself up to them; till in their own time they seize and devour him.

What a dreadful figure this is of the power of sin and the devil over our hearts!

At first our conscience tells us, in a plain straightforward way, what is right and what is wrong; but when we trifle with this warning, our reason becomes perverted, and comes in aid of our wishes, and deceives us to our ruin.

Then we begin to find, that there are arguments available in behalf of bad deeds, and we listen to these till we come to think them true; and then, if perchance better thoughts return, and we make some feeble effort to get at the truth really and sincerely, we find our minds by that time so bewildered that we do not know right from wrong.

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 8, Curiosity a Temptation to Sin.

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