A Lenten State of Mind

I share this treatise from St. Isaac the Syrian as  a help in preparing our hearts and minds for the journey through Lent.

Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute others.

Be crucified, but do not crucify others.

Be slandered, but do not slander others.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep: such is the sign of purity.

Suffer with the sick.

Be afflicted with sinners.

Exult with those who repent.

Be the friend of all, but in your spirit remain alone.

Be a partaker of the sufferings of all, but keep your body distant from all.

Rebuke no one, revile no one, not even those who live very wickedly.

Spread your cloak over those who fall into sin, each and every one, and shield them.

And if you cannot take the fault on yourself and accept punishment in their place, do not destroy their character.

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

The person who is genuinely charitable not only gives charity out of his own possessions, but gladly tolerates injustice from others and forgives them. Whoever lays down his soul for his brother acts generously, rather than the person who demonstrates his generosity by his gifts.

God is not One who requites evil, but who sets evil right.

Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness.

The person who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, even now breathes the air of the resurrection.

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

Question: When is a person sure of having arrived at purity?

Answer: When that person considers all human beings are good, and no created thing appears impure or defiled. Then a person is truly pure in heart.

Love is sweeter than life.

Sweeter still, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb is the awareness of God whence love is born.

Love is not loath to accept the hardest of deaths for those it loves.

Love is the child of knowledge.

Lord, fill my heart with eternal life.

As for me I say that those who are tormented in hell are tormented by the invasion of love. What is there more bitter and violent than the pains of love? Those who feel they have sinned against love bear in themselves a damnation much heavier than the most dreaded punishments. The suffering with which sinning against love afflicts the heart is more keenly felt than any other torment. It is absurd to assume that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is offered impartially. But by its very power it acts in two ways. It torments sinners, as happens here on earth when we are tormented by the presence of a friend to whom we have been unfaithful. And it gives joy to those who have been faithful.

That is what the torment of hell is in my opinion: remorse. But love inebriates the souls of the sons and daughters of heaven by its delectability.

If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body, using gentleness and humility in order to bring the world back to his Father?

Sin is the fruit of free will. There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist.

God’s recompense to sinners is that, instead of a just recompense, God rewards them with resurrection.

O wonder! The Creator clothed in a human being enters the house of tax collectors and prostitutes. Thus the entire universe, through the beauty of the sight of him, was drawn by his love to the single confession of God, the Lord of all.

“Will God, if I ask, forgive me these things by which I am pained and by whose memory I am tormented, things by which, though I abhor them, I go on backsliding? Yet after they have taken place the pain they give me is even greater than that of a scorpion’s sting. Though I abhor them, I am still in the middle of them, and when I repent of them with suffering I wretchedly return to them again.”

This is how many God-fearing people think, people who foster virtue and are pricked with the suffering of compunction, who mourn over their sin; They live between sin and repentance all the time. Let us not be in doubt, O fellow humanity, concerning the hope of our salvation, seeing that the One who bore sufferings for our sakes is very concerned about our salvation; God’s mercifulness is far more extensive than we can conceive, God’s grace is greater than what we ask for.

When we find love, we partake of heavenly bread and are made strong without labor and toil. The heavenly bread is Christ, who came down from heaven and gave life to the world. This is the nourishment of angels. The person who has found love eats and drinks Christ every day and every hour and is thereby made immortal. …When we hear Jesus say, “Ye shall eat and drink at the table of my kingdom,” what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love, rather than food and drink, is sufficient to nourish a person. This is the wine “which maketh glad the heart.” Blessed is the one who partakes of this wine! Licentious people have drunk this wine and become chaste; sinners have drunk it and have forgotten the pathways of stumbling; drunkards have drunk this wine and become fasters; the rich have drunk it and desired poverty, the poor have drunk it and been enriched with hope; the sick have drunk it and become strong; the unlearned have taken it and become wise.

Repentance is given us as grace after grace, for repentance is a second regeneration by God. That of which we have received an earnest by baptism, we receive as a gift by means of repentance. Repentance is the door of mercy, opened to those who seek it. By this door we enter into the mercy of God, and apart from this entrance we shall not find mercy.

Blessed is God who uses corporeal objects continually to draw us close in a symbolic way to a knowledge of God’s invisible nature. O name of Jesus, key to all gifts, open up for me the great door to your treasure-house, that I may enter and praise you with the praise that comes from the heart.

O my Hope, pour into my heart the inebriation that consists in the hope of you. O Jesus Christ, the resurrection and light of all worlds, place upon my soul’s head the crown of knowledge of you; open before me all of a sudden the door of mercies, cause the rays of your grace to shine out in my heart.

O Christ, who are covered with light as though with a garment, who for my sake stood naked in front of Pilate, clothe me with that might which you caused to overshadow the saints, whereby they conquered this world of struggle. May your Divinity, Lord, take pleasure in me, and lead me above the world to be with you.
I give praise to your holy Nature, Lord, for you have made my nature a sanctuary for your hiddenness and a tabernacle for your holy mysteries, a place where you can dwell, and a holy temple for your Divinity.

Adapted from Met. Hilarion Alfeyev’s The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian 200(Cistercian Studies 175), Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications,2000.

The Thin Time of Emptiness

In a time of quiet reflection now, after having served the Liturgy of Good Friday with our local community, it occurs to me that I probably have not kept the discipline of Lent very well. At least, that's the way it feels. Looking back over these last forty days I not only wonder where did the time go, but also am made aware that my attempts at ascesis were a woeful failure. I do not 'give up' things like certain types of food during Lent because none of that seems like very much of a sacrifice. Even the traditional fish on Wednesdays and Fridays really does not provide much of a hardship, so rather than give up a certain food I prefer to try and add something to my daily activities - extra prayers, extra kneeling - something like that. There should have been more of these 'extras' than there was.

One traditional monastic discipline I truly wanted to observe with integrity was the 'Grand Silence' - no speaking for a prescribed period of time each day. A worthy spiritual discipline, not terribly difficult. That is, if you don't have lots of cats.

I have lots of cats and I was amazed to discover just how difficult it is to remember not to talk to them. Cats (and dogs too, I imagine) will have their presence acknowledged in some way or another. A stroke on the head here and a hug there will suffice for a short time but when they realize you are not talking to them, then it begins: everything they can possibly do to irritate you enough to yell at them. So my attempts at Grand Silence turned out to be decidedly not so grand. But I will keep trying.

Perhaps the one thing I had hoped to grasp hold of more firmly in my heart was the emptiness of Christ: Though He was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave ...

I am still overwhelmed at the very thought of a Love that empties itself, pours itself out, dosen't seek equality or rights or honour and ultimately lays down its life.

I am still not able to absorb this Truth, not fully. I know what it looks like, but at the same time, I know how very far from it I am. Lord, have mercy!

In days of ancient Celtic yore, times that were frought with distress, death and mourning were called the 'thin' times.

Given that the entire season of Lent engages us in a spiritual thin time, it seems the Easter Triduum takes us beyond thin-ness into emptiness. Within this emptiness, to whatever degree one is experiencing salvation, our temptations and delusions become a bit clearer to us and we awake, like a sleeper, to the voice of Christ saying, Come forth! as He pulls us out of the depths that we didn't even realize we were in.

Out of the depths I cry to You, Lord, hear my prayer.

The road to Pascha must include a measure of emptiness, I think (at least it should), else how would we have room for the fullness of Pascha?

Pascha is the super-abundant fullness of Christ's Victory and the measure we receive of it depends on how well we have prepared our hearts. I know I have not prepared my heart as well as I should have or possibly could have and I am not worthy to celebrate the joyous fullness of Pascha. Christ has descended to the depths; can I descend with Him a little? Is there still time?

Now is the time of salvation.

Can I empty a little bit more of myself in some small way? When can I confidently proclaim:

My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready ... ?

Transform my heart, I pray, O King of Glory, and make it ready for Thyself!

Then ...

I will sing, I will sing Your praise.

Awake, my soul, awake lyre and harp. I will awake the dawn.

O God, arise above the heavens; may Your glory shine on earth (Psalm 57). 

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The Question of Lent

For some the season of Lent might mean a time of lamentation and deprivation. For others it has little or no significance except that it precedes Pascha (Easter).
For me, it is a time of deep reflection, the opportunity each year for renewal and ultimately of joy.

It is the time when we can (and should) examine ourselves and ask serious questions. Most especially to ask ourselves, "Am I being saved?" Not, "Am I saved?" but "Am I being saved?"
We know our salvation is not a one-time event but an ongoing conversion - a progression of being transformed and perfected in the Image and Likeness of Christ.

Do we reflect the manners of Christ in our mannerisms? Or do we treat others as obstacles to getting what we want? The kindness of Christ in our speaking? Or do we talk trash? The Face of Christ in our faces? Or do we walk around with a scowl? Are we so sensitive to offense that our conversation with our husband/wife/close friends is a monologue of the indignities we had to endure throughout a given day?

We often get pulled in so many directions throughout our daily activities that we struggle with remembering all the things we are supposed to do so we carry day planners and set alarms and ringtones on our cell phones to notify us of various appointments. I wonder how it would work if we set our cell phones to tone and display a note saying, "Be still, be silent, remember God and give Him your loving attention for the next 5 minutes."

I have said before that I am not a fan of resolutions because they are usually of a selfish nature and are rarely kept. I stand by that statement. However, if one is determined to make a ‘resolution’ Lent, it seems to me, is the better time to do it than New Year’s.
But in either case, we should use caution in deciding on these ‘resolutions’. We should be cautious in resolving to do something that we do not have some realistic notion of being able to carry through. This is often why we seem to fail. We set the bar too high. Most often, however, the things we seem to pick to ‘give up’ for Lent also just so happens to have ‘self-improvement’ qualities as well. We ‘give up’ sweets and desserts and it also helps us to lose weight. Convenient.
Are we really giving up the sweets and desserts for the sake of disciplining our appetites to encourage a greater hunger for God’s Presence? Or are we giving these up so we can say we gave something up for Lent and because we think we might be able to drop a few pounds and look better in our new Easter Sunday Best clothes?

We should examine our intent.

Many years ago I heard an Orthodox bishop tell a story during his homily. Perhaps it is a well-known story, perhaps not, I do not know. But I do know it made an impact on me at the time such that I have never forgotten it. The story goes that a young soldier in the army of Alexander the Great was accused of desertion in the face of the enemy during a campaign. The young soldier was caught by his superior officers and brought before the king. The young man was ashamed and afraid for his life and so kept his head bowed and stared at the ground. The king asked the young man his name. There was no answer. The king asked the same question several times with no answer and became angry. He got up, stood before the young man and drew his sword and asked once more, “What is your name?”
The quivering young man finally looked up and fearfully whispered, “My name is Alexander.” The king looked at him sternly, sheathed his sword and said to the youth, “Change your conduct or change your name.”

Although repentance is not confined to one season of the year, Lent is, for Christians, the time of opportunity to change our conduct, for we dare not change our name. Not if we want to live.

To isolate and focus on one particular aspect of our thinking or doing and to offer just that for God to change according to His Will may not seem very notable but it is the little things that so often cause us to stumble. “The devil belittles small sins; otherwise he cannot lead us into greater ones” (St. Mark the Ascetic).

These little things become like signposts pointing the way to the answer of “Am I being saved?”
The activity of Grace in our lives and the progress we think should ensue often seems to happen very slowly or in ways that are seemingly insignificant. The Holy Trinity is always working. Christ is ever working, drawing us to the Father through Himself and in the Holy Spirit but it is we who resist. We resist in ways we don’t even realize and so it takes some effort on our part to cooperate with Grace. That cooperation often takes some not so pleasant forms. It may take the form of simply remaining silent when someone offends us. Or it may take the form of doing something even when we don’t feel like it. I suspect there are many opportunities of Grace that I have missed out on simply because, when it came to being somewhere or doing some thing, I didn’t feel like it. Our Christian lives are not based on how we feel. How we feel has nothing to do with Am I being saved?
We may not feel like going to church or participating in the Liturgy at any given time, but are we being saved when we don’t?

A change of heart (metanoia) is the essence of repentance and should be a continuing condition. Our conduct and attitude is a reflection of this inner state of our heart and the disposition of our heart is, in turn, influenced by our thinking and doing. As Fr. Stephen has profoundly noted: “The heart changes in the crucible of our actions. Generosity and kindness are begotten of generosity and kindness”.

But our actions are always preceded by thoughts, as St. Mark the Ascetic affirms: “When you sin, blame your thought, not your action. For had your intellect not run ahead, your body would not have followed.”

We should discriminate in what we give our attention to.

Feeding the intellect a steady diet of gratuitous violence, horror, bloodshed, sex, greed and hypocrisy and calling it ‘entertainment’ will certainly beget something in us but it most likely will not be generosity, kindness or humility. Or love.
I tend to think there is a lot more to that old cartoon of the three monkeys with their hands over their eyes, ears and mouth – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil – than many of us would care to admit.

Are we being saved?
Are we being saved in our marriage relationship? In our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ? In our church? In our monastic community? In our Vows?
These are hard questions that cannot be answered with excuses.

Christ emptied Himself that we may receive His Fullness. He continues to empty Himself and we are not worthy of His Emptiness nor His Fullness. We are not worthy of such a Saviour, of such a King … of such a God!
May our journey through Lent prepare our hearts to meet the Answer.

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