Tightrope Walker - Model for Watchfulness and Faith

We know in the Christian life, the path we follow is a narrow one, and the temptations to pull us away from it are many. We accept that our struggle is a continuous one. We strain to keep our focus on on Him, to seek to align our own will with His––“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”  Too often we become complacent, feel satisfied with our comfortable life style, and stop the struggle.  This is when we are in the most danger. We must always be watchful, the Scripture and the Church Fathers tell us.

The image of a tightrope walker for is a powerful one for me. Maybe its because of my fear of heights. But think for a moment of a tightrope stretched between two skyscrapers about one-hundred floors or more above street level. Imagine yourself on that rope, halfway between the two buildings.  There is no escape. To fall would mean certain death.  Each step has to be taken very carefully.  You have to totally attentive to every movement.  One slip and you die.  Think of the level of intensity of concentration that is required.  This is the kind of attention that is required of us in our daily walk as a Christian. 

There is a story about one the famous tightrope walkers Charles Blondin.

Charles Blondin the tightrope walker announced one day that he wanted to perform a special feat. He wanted to pull a steel cable across the Niagara Falls and walk across the falls from the Canadian side to the American side while pushing a wheel barrow full of rocks (late 1800’s). 

No one believed he could do such a feat especially a reporter who wrote in the newspaper saying that the tightrope walker was crazy. 

So one day he had a steel cable pulled across the Falls and announced he was going to perform this feat on Sunday. 

Many people came (to see him fail - and die). 

When the time came, he took a wheel barrow full of rocks, got on the steel cable and began his difficult journey. 

It was very windy in Niagara and the rushing waters from the falls are very disturbing and frightening. A steel cable that stretched for over a kilometer is very unstable and sways under his feet. One step at a time, he walked that steel cable. Many times he stopped to catch his breath. 

About six feet from the end – he pushed the wheel barrow on to the other side – did a cartwheel along the rope and made it to the other side! 

When he was getting congratulated, he saw the reporter, the one who wrote in the paper saying that he was crazy. He immediately asked the reporter if he still believed he was crazy. The reporter replied he now believed he wasn’t crazy as he saw the feat being done. 

Blondin then asked “Do you think I could do it again?” and the reporter said, “Yes.” 

Blondin then emptied the wheel barrow full of rocks and said to him, “If you really believe, get in...”

It is one thing to mentally believe and quite another to have faith. Faith is more than a decision. It is a way of life. It requires the attentiveness of a tightrope walker.

John Chrysostom used this same image to instruct us. 

And, as for men who walk upon a tightrope cannot be off their guard ever so little, for that little causes great mischief; for the man losing his balance is at once precipitated down and perishes; so neither is it possible for us to be off our guard  We walk down a narrow road intercepted by precipices on either side, not admitting of two fee at the same time.  Do you not see how much carefulness is needed?

Let us take heed to the narrow way, let us walk with fear and trembling...  No one traveling such a road caries with him any excess; for he would be contented even lightly equipped to be abel to escape. No one entangles his own feet, but leaves then disengaged, and free to move. But we, chaining ourselves down with numberless cares, and carrying with us the numberless burdens of this life, staring about, and loosely rambling, how do we expect to travel in that narrow road?

John Chrysostom reminds us that the path to Heaven is not an easy one,

Let not anyone therefore expect that he shall see heaven with ease.  For it cannot be. Let no one hope to travel the narrow road with luxury, for it is impossible… For once let us be sober, let us open our eyes, let us watch, let us lay hold on eternal life, let us shake off this long sleep.  There is a Judgment, there is a Punishment, there is a Resurrection, there is an Inquisition into what we have done!…  

Quotes of St. John Chrysostom are from his Homily 9 on 1Thessalonians 5: 1-11.

Prayer Is An Endless Creation - Archimandrite Zacharias

Humbleness is essential for prayer - Archimandrite Zacharias:

No matter how daunting and difficult the struggle of purifying the heart may be, nothing should deter us from this undertaking. We have on our side the ineffable goodness of a God Who has made man’s heart His personal concern and goal. In the book of Job, we read the following astonishing words:

“What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment…” (Job 7:17-19).

We sense God, Who is incomprehensible, pursuing man’s heart:

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

He knocks at the door of our heart, but He also encourages us to knock at the door of His mercy:

“Knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Lk. 11:9-10).

When the two doors that are God’s goodness and man’s heart open, then the greatest miracle of our existence occurs: man’s heart is united with the Spirit of the Lord, God feasting with the sons of men.

Let us not fail to humble our spirit. If we acquire this blessed habit, many of our faults will be corrected. For example, the thought may come to mind that we have grieved our brother, and we know that in order to be pleasing to God and to remain in His presence we must be reconciled to the person we have grieved. In order to enter Paradise, one must have a heart as wide as the heavens, a heart that embraces all men. If a heart excludes even just one person, it will not be accepted by the Lord because He will not be able to dwell in it.

Prayer is an endless creation; it is a school that teaches us to remain in the presence of the Lord. This effort to remain with the Lord is an exercise that finally overcomes death, which is why our prayer must be neither superficial nor mechanical. We must unite mind and heart in order to learn true mental prayer, in other words, we must pray with our whole inner being, with all our mind and heart.

Prayer is a school, and humility is the key to success in this discipline. Let us be humble. Let us have the certainty of our own nothingness before God, knowing that the only thing that makes us truly human is the breath that our God and Creator has breathed into us. In every other respect we are earth, and earth is trodden underfoot. What makes us truly precious is the breath of God, received by us at the time of our creation and at our re-creation in holy baptism. This breath is what makes us the image and likeness of God.

by Archimandrite Zacharias: The Hidden Man of the Heart

Death - views from Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

Death is the touchstone of our attitude to life. People who are afraid of death are afraid of life. It is impossible not to be afraid of life with all its complexity and dangers if one is afraid of death. This means that to solve the problem of death is not a luxury. If we are afraid of death we will never be prepared to take ultimate risks; we will spend our life in a cowardly, careful and timid manner. It is only if we can face death, make sense of it, determine its place and our place in regard to it that we will be able to live in a fearless way and to the fulness of our ability. Too often we wait until the end of our life to face death, whereas we would have lived quite differently if only we had faced death at the outset.

According to St. John Climacus, one of the essential steps in the transformation of our fallen nature and the acquisition of the virtues is "meleti thanatou", or the remembrance of death. In fact, Step 6 of his Ladder of Divine Ascent is dedicated to this very practice. On October 3rd the Church guides us to read this specific chapter from beginning to end, because at the end is the tale of the Blessed Hesychius the Horebite whom we celebrate today. St. John thought his tale to be the perfect seal on this beneficial chapter dedicated to the remembrance of death, and below I offer the ending portion of this chapter to see why:

Some inquire and wonder: “Why, when the remembrance of death is so beneficial to us, has God hidden from us the knowledge of the hour of death?” – not knowing that in this way God wonderfully accomplishes our salvation. For no one who foreknew his death would at once proceed to baptism or the monastic life; but everyone would spend all his days in iniquities, and only on the day of his death, would he approach baptism and repentance. From long habit, he would become confirmed in vice, and would remain utterly incorrigible.

And I cannot be silent about the story of Hesychius the Horebite. He passed his life in complete negligence, without paying the least attention to his soul. Then he became extremely ill, and for an hour he expired. And when he came to himself, he begged us all to leave him immediately. And he built up the door of his cell, and he stayed in it for twelve years without ever uttering a word to anyone, and without eating anything but bread and water. And, always remaining motionless, he was so rapt in spirit at what he had seen in his ecstasy, that he never changed this manner of life but was always as if out of his mind, and silently shed hot tears. But when he was about to die, we broke open the door and went in, and after many questions, this alone was all we heard from him: “Forgive me! No one who has acquired the remembrance of death will ever be able to sin.” We were amazed to see that one who had before been so negligent was so suddenly transfigured by this blessed change and transformation. We reverently buried him in the cemetery near the fort, and after some days we looked for his holy relics, but did not find them. So by Hesychius’s true and praiseworthy repentance, the Lord showed us that He accepts those who desire to amend, even after long negligence.



[From St. John Climacus, “The Ladder of Divine Ascent,” (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1978), p. 70.]

Orthodox Family…

Orthodox Family…

by Rev. Fr. Alexy (Hieromonk Ambrose) Young

Our lack of wholeness also affects our concept of the family. In our culture each member of the family is primarily concerned with his own private interests. Parents nurture a spirit of individualism which, in our day, has spawned such ideas as "Women's Liberation" (a term which Kireyevsky knew and analyzed) and "Gay Liberation". This lack of cohesiveness in the family has produced the most lifeless and sterile of environments for our children to grow up in: most homes are dominated by a television, which is often used to baby-sit children even when parents are at home. At the time of writing, 40% of American mothers work full or part-time outside of the home. As a result, children are encouraged to develop more and more outside interests which take them away from the home and the rest of the family as they "do their own thing." In the 20th century, the home has really become only a "house"-a place in which people take their meals and sleep.

Kireyevsky contrasted this with the Orthodox home in which parents are actively involved with the rest of the family and where children are taught to live and work for the good of the whole family; where parents put selfish or private interests after the goal of creating a warm, living environment in which children actually learn more from the parents than from school or their peers.

In a western family, the members rise in the morning and quickly scatter to their separate pursuits, returning home at different times in order to eat a quick dinner before again leaving to spend the evening elsewhere, in worldly pursuits. In the Orthodox family, the members awaken and gather before the household ikons while the father reads all or some of the Morning Prayers. Meals are taken together, with the parents presiding over and directing conversation. If there is a television at all, it is used with the greatest caution and parental control. Most evenings are spent quietly, either preparing for a feast or a fast, or in some other productive and family oriented activity. Parents read aloud the lives of the saints to their children.

Some have the pious custom of encouraging a child to read a saint's life aloud at a meal (often at Sunday dinner).

As Saint John Chrysostom writes:

"For just as with a general when his soldiery also is well organized the enemy has no quarter to attack; so, I say, is it also here: when husband and wife and children and servants are all interested in the same things, great is the harmony of the house. Since where this is not the case, the whole is oftentimes overthrown and broken up by one ... and that single one will often mar and utterly destroy the whole."

Above all, the Orthodox home "is the abode where the members of the family will spend the majority of their lives. It is here, not in society, nor at the market place, where individuals will learn of the important things of the Christian life. It is in the Christian home that individuals will be able to work out their eternal salvation. It is in the Christian home that children will be raised and taught by word and action what it means to be a Christian. It is in the Christian home that all of the teachings of Christ and of the Church can be practiced."

Source:

A Man Is His Faith, p 40

by Rev. Fr. Alexy (Hieromonk Ambrose) Young

About the writings of Ivan Kireyevsky 1806-1856

Power of Repentance

Personal Transfiguration

by Jason Zahariades

I had a wonderful meeting with Fr Patrick yesterday afternoon. I cannot adequately express my joy at having a spiritual father whom I consider both wise and safe. In addition, I never feel I’m receiving spiritual advice that has not first been hammered out in his own life. Fr Patrick is a trustworthy fellow sojourner on the path to salvation and life in Christ.

Yesterday, he reminded me of a very simple truth that has been resonating in my mind all night and morning. He said that the place of personal transfiguration is where God’s divine energies and our personal repentance meet. This “equation” for spiritual formation is neither a magical formula nor an instantaneous event. It requires both the discipline of an ascetic life and an abundance of time as we cooperate with God’s grace. But this simple equation basically summarizes the life of the Orthodox Church. The life of the Church through its Scriptures, services, sacraments and stories of the saints, is aimed at helping us by both developing personal repentance and exposing us to God’s divine energies.

I’m particularly captivated with Orthodoxy’s focus on repentance. Frankly, constantly hearing about repentance when we first began attending the Orthodox Church rubbed me the wrong way. Repentance is not a popular concept in American Christianity. It’s often associated with the “Woe-is-me-Beat-myself-up” mentality of abusive and destructive religion. It took some time for me to purge that image out of my head.

But that’s not repentance at all. Repentance literally means “to change one’s mind.” It’s used during the New Testament time in a similar way as our modern phrase, “Think about it.” To repent is to hear an alternative to one’s agenda or course of action, to carefully weigh the consequences of both, and ultimately to recognize the wisdom of the alternative and lay down your inferior agenda. Repentance isn’t just changing one’s mental perspective but it’s the actual transformation of one’s mind and subsequently, one’s life. When you embrace the superior alternative, it begins to transform your values, perspective and behavior. It’s a complete shift of worldview.

St. Isaac the Syrian correctly defines repentance as “to be transformed in the renewal of the mind.” While it can include remorse or confessing to breaking a law, repentance is ultimately the process of becoming one in heart and mind with Christ. Therefore, it is something we do through the rest of our lives.

So spiritual formation in the Orthodox Church is to be constantly confronted with the superior way, truth and life that is Christ himself, to be encouraged and urged to weigh the consequences of my self-destructive patterns of thinking, behaving and relating in light of the better way of Christ, and to lay down my way and to take up my cross and follow Christ. And this entire process is soaked in God’s divine energies.

“But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the lord, who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

It is this way that the Church is therapeutic, healing and repairing us of our brokenness and distortion. It is this way that the Church is like a gym, training and honing us into holiness.

http://jzahariades.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/personal-transfiguration/

His Divine Presence - More Thoughts from His LIfe is Mine

In prayer, especially, we are aware of the divine Presence of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  There is nothing greater than to have this personal relationship with our Creator.  Savor these thoughts given to us by Archimandrite Sophrony:

In Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit God gave us the full and final revelation of Himself.  His Being now for us is the First Reality, incomparably more evident than all the transient phenomena of this world.  We sense His divine presence both within us and without: in the supreme majesty of the universe, in the human face, in the lightning flash of thought.  He opens our eyes that we may behold and delight in the beauty of His creation.  He fill our souls with love towards all mankind.  He indescribably gentle touch pierces our heart.  And in the hours when His imperishable Light illumines our heart we know that we shall not die.  We know this with a knowledge to prove in the ordinary way, but which for us requires no proof, since the Spirit Himself bears witness within us.

Archimandrite Sophrony in His LIfe is Mine, p22-23

To develop this relationship with God takes time and effort.  In Scripture we can observe how slowly He revealed His full nature to His disciples.  At the very end of His time on earth He told them, "The Holy spirit...shall teach you all things to your remembrance, whosoever I have said unto you." (John 14:36)  "When the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13)  They prepared themselves for this with several years of His teaching and many days of prayer and fasting. It is in a life of prayer that we receive inspiration from Him, sending down on us His unlimited love.  The relationship we can develop with Him is one that cannot be put into words.

For us, Christians, Jesus Christ is the measure of all things, divine and human.  "In Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead" (Col 2:9) and of mankind.  He is our most perfect ideal.  In Him we find the answer to al our problems, which without Him would be insoluble.  He is n truth the mystical axis of the universe.  If Christ were not hte Son of God, then Salvation through the adoption of man by God the Father would be totally incomprehesible.  With Christ man steps forward into divine eternity.

Archimandrite Sophrony in His LIfe is Mine, p 31

More on prayer of the heart...

Returning to God - Thoughts from His LIfe is Mine

One of the things I had to come to terms with in my spiritual journey was to understand why there was so much suffering in life.  Why did God make it so difficult.  In the beginning I was willing to put this burden on God.  Eventually I came to see it differently.  Here is how it now makes sense to me.

In the beginning we were created in the image of God and endowed with a free will.  This gave us the capability to love God as He loves us.  It also eliminated the possibility of predestination as we can use this free will with full liberty.  We can choose to go against what God asks of us like Adam and Eve.  But there is a catch.  With this freedom we have there are consequences of our actions.  We all are made to seek perfection by striving to become like the image of God we have been created with.  In our efforts to grow in this way, we collectively make imperfect choices and experience suffering and pain.  In this is a creative turmoil. But this is precisely what leads to our further growth.  In our suffering we come to know our limitations, imperfections and need for renewal and transformation.  Often, out of fear,  we seek to avoid all pain and the reality of death. This serves to draw us into contemplation about the meaning of life and the purpose of our struggle.  It is in this struggle that we grow.  As we grow we learn to accept the difficulties that come our way as further opportunities for our growth.  We become thankful and each new encounter leads us closer to God.

Archimandrite Sophrony puts it this way,

We Christians accept the wondrous gift of life with thanksgiving.  Called by Christ, we strive for the fullest possible knowledge of the Primary source of all that exists.  From our birth onwards we gradually grow and enter into possession of being.  Christ is for us "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).  With Him our path lies through a great and intricate spiritual culture: we traverse cosmic chasms, more often with much suffering but not seldom win rapture as understanding increases.  For a while the growing process is bound up with our physical body; but the time soon comes when, liberated from terrestrial chains, mind and spirit can continue their progress towards the Heavenly Father.  We know  that He loves us and because of this love reveals Himself to us without limit.  It may still be only partly, but we know that in Him is our immortality; in Him we shall arrive at everlasting Truth.  He will grant us with indescribably joy of sharing in the very Act of the Divine creation of the world.  We hunger for complete unity in Him.  He is Light, Beauty, Wisdom, Love.  He gives the noblest meaning to our life and the bliss of boundless gnosis.

Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life is Mine, p 35 

Yes, we need to learn to be thankful for whatever difficulty we are called to face, as it will lead us to an inward peace and union with Christ our God. The reward is as Archimandrite says, "He reals Himself to us without limit." and "He will grant us with indescribably joy of sharing in the very Act of the divine creation." This then gives us the meaning we seek out of life.

The reality of life is that as we humble ourselves, accept our weakness, and recognize our self-centeredness, the Holy Spirit makes its home in us and we come to know Christ with certainty and have no lingering doubts about our eternal life with Him. The Gospel is transformed from a book into a clear description of the true love of God for us.  As we walk this path, we learn that we must deal with our sinfulness.

In my case this took many years.  I led a life for over forty years without having any realization that I was living in sin.  I was successful in my career, had a loving wife and healthy kids.  I was in control and everything was going my way.  Eventually, the reality of death and a persistent conscience began to have an impact.  I began to feel the pressure on my job and wondering about the purpose of this hectic way of life.  I began to search for the truth.  This eventually led to a thirst to be become part of God's Kingdom, but the path was one with many detours.  It wasn't until I learned how to pray that I began to make any progress in this search for true peace.  The truth I found was that it is only through an inner process of searching, involving contemplation, prayer, fasting and regular participation in the sacraments of the Church, that the Holy Spirit becomes active within and makes its home within us.

Archimandrite Sophrony says,

...true contemplation begins the moment we become aware of sin in us... To apprehend sin in oneself is a spiritual act, impossible without grace, without the drawing near to us of Divine Light.The intial effect of the approach of this mysterious Light is that we see where we stand "spiritually" at the particular moment.  The first manisfestations of the Uncreated Light do not allow us to experinece it as light.  It shines in a secret way,  illuminating the black darkness of our inner world to disclose a specticle that is far from joyous for us in our notmal state of fallen being... We become acutely conscious of sin as a sundering from the ontological source of our being.  Our s;pirit is eternal but now we see ourselves as  prisoners of death.  With death waiting at the end, another thousand years of life would seem but a deceptive flash.  

Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life is Mine, p 41

We learn that it is our sinfulness that separates us from God.  This is what sin is in reality.  It is not about violating a code of ethics. It's about having a personal relationship with God.  We discover that until we form this relationship we are living in sin.  Once we realize this state, then the desire grows with to come closer to God.  We become zealots.  We embrace repentance, feeling sorry for our separation from God, seeing to change our way of being,  and asking God for forgiveness and help.

Archimandrate Sophrony says there is no room for justification of our sinfulness.

 When we seek to justify sinful action we ipso facto sever our alliance with God.  God does not constrain us but neither can He be coerced.  He retires leaving us berift of His lumeous  presence.  Of course, man cannot altogether avoid sinning; but he can avoid the cnsquences of sin––separation from God––through repentance.  With repentance and the consequent increae of grace within us, the reality of the Divine World preponderates over the visible cosmos.  We contemplate the FIRST REALITY.  

 Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life is Mine, pp 45-50 

When we are properly prepared and ready, only then does the Holy Spirit come.  Preparation is necessary because we must first be receptive.  God does not force himself on us.  We must seek Him.  We receive the Holy Spirit when we are able to surrender our self-control and open our hearts to him, trusting in Him totally, and able to call Him "Our Father, Who art in Heaven," with heartfelt sincerity.  With this comes an intense yearning for His love.

Archimandrite Sopharony says,

 Live-giving faith consists in unquestionaling belief in Christ as God.   Only when Christ is accepted as perfect God and perfect Man does the plentitude of spiritual experience described by the apostles and fathers become possible.  

Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life is Mine, p 50 

In my case, it was prayer combined with full participation in the Sacraments of the Church that cleared the way and opened this path to union with God. My return started with the practice of the Jesus Prayer.

Archimandrate Sophrony says, "Of all approaches to God prayer is the best and in the last analysis the only means."


Quotes from His Life is Mine by Archimandtie Sophrony