After we have been long dedicated to silent prayer and experience it largely as restful and peaceful, it is easy enough to feel quite happy simply to stretch out in this hammock of contemplative practice and enjoy a martini of quietude. In this case we have managed to avoid the pull of the moon on our awareness and instead have become besotted by the moon’s allure. This is not to deny the real progress we
Holy Ground All this might sound like a new sort of romanticism, but our own very concrete experiences and observations will help us to recognize this as realism. Often we must confess that the experience of our loneliness is stronger than that of our solitude and that our words about solitude are spoken out of the painful silence of loneliness. But there are happy moments of direct knowing, affirming our hopes and encouraging us in
The great penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete conceals within it great neptic wealth. Let’s bring to mind some of its precious gems: Instead of the visible Eve, I have the Eve of the mind: the passionate thought in my flesh, showing me what seems sweet; yet whenever I taste from it, I find it bitter (34). Thou hast heard O – my soul, be watchful! – how Ishmael was driven out as the
“In a monastery one is not allowed to have negative feelings toward anyone. If you have a complaint, you are expected to go to that brother, make a deep bow, and ask for forgiveness. That is how the traps of Satan are destroyed, rendering him incapable of causing divisions among us.” “Is this, perhaps, the secret that has allowed monasteries to last for thousands of years whereas other communal arrangements tend to have very brief
Every culture has its spiritual origin in a cult, from which little by little it becomes detached, until it is entirely cut off and self-contained, even perhaps the preserve of an elite. This ‘decadent’ phase of its history is often the time of its highest refinement, subtlety and consciousness. Wholeness and spontaneity give place to a nuanced awareness, a degree of scepticism, a tolerance of diversity, a dislike of sharp distinctions, a readiness to see
The Quarrelsome Brother I once told him, “Elder, I can’t work together with this brother … he is a complainer.” “You fool, you are an egotist. Do you know that? Because of this you suffer in many ways.” “I know it Elder. I have been like this from my youth. Pray that God will give me a humble heart.” “When the heart has God-given humility it sees everything clearly. It already lives in the earthly
Stripped of all knowledge, lacking in every good thought or deed, without memory from the past or wish for the future, as useless as a worn-out rag, unfeeling as a stone in the path, corroded as a worm-eaten mushroom in the woods, mortal as a fish on the shore and grieved to tears over this wretched plight of yours, thus you will stand in prayer before the Almighty, your Judge and Creator and Father, your
Two pilgrims asked an ascetic hagiorite:1 – To what extent are we responsible for the thoughts that attack our nous? The Elder replied with a beautiful allegory: – Aeroplanes pass above, here where I live. I cannot hinder the aeroplanes. I’m not responsible for that. I would be responsible if I began to build an airport. The acceptance of the attacks, which is consent, can be compared to the airport. In the first volume of
Meditation is an activity of thought, while prayer is the rejection of every thought. According to the teaching of the eastern Fathers, even pious thoughts and the deepest and loftiest theological considerations, if they occur during prayer, must be considered as a temptation and suppressed; because, as the Fathers say, it is foolish to think about God and forget that you are in his presence. All the spiritual guides of Orthodoxy warn us against replacing
Jesus’ entire journey told people two major things: that life could have a positive story line, and that God was far different and far better than we ever thought. He did not just give us textbook answers from a distance, but personally walked through the process of being both rejected and forgiving, and then said, “Follow me.” The significance of Jesus’ wounded body is his deliberate and conscious holding of the pain of the world
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