If you don’t learn to carry your cross during your daily life, then you are losing the thousand opportunities that God creates for you at every moment so that you can become perfected as a human being.
“The Gerontikon [a series of books about the lives of great elders] is full of examples of simple practices that have led many to become giants of virtue. Abba Agathon prayed to God, ‘Please, God, help me do Your Will today so that I can say that at least for one day I did what You asked of me to do.’ And what do you think he did? Nothing different than what he usually did. He didn’t say, ‘Let me sit down and pray from morning till night.’ No. He asked, ‘What ‘kind of work do I have today?’ He then told himself, ‘I have to go to the flour mill to grind my wheat.’
He loaded his sack of wheat on his shoulders and went to the mill. Incidentally, when I first went to Mt. Athos, they still had those types of mills. There were neither machines nor animals to turn the millstone. It had to be done by hand, by the monks. It required a lot of hard, physical labor to grind the wheat. The moment Abba Agathon was ready to spread his wheat, another arrived and pleaded with him to let him go first because he was in a hurry. Abba Agathon replied, ‘Gladly.’ The other person said, ‘Well, since you are here, can you give me a hand to move the stone?’ ‘Fine.’ They finished the grinding and the other person got his flour and left. Then as Abba Agathon was about to unload his wheat, another person came, and it happened all over again. Then two more came along asking him for the same thing.
Night came, and Abba Agathon was still unable to grind his wheat. He put it on his back and returned to his hermitage. This was considered by the monastic tradition as an example of perfect spiritual work. Abba Agathon did not complain. He did not get upset. He did not say, ‘Okay, fellows, you are from this area. I came from afar, from the desert. Let me grind my wheat.’ Such examples demonstrate that these hermits were blessed not because of prolonged states of fasting and prayer but because of simple acts of kindness that could be done by anyone of us.”
“This is comforting,” Eleni said. “It means there is hope even for us living in the world.”
“This is the lesson from these types of stories,” Fr. Maximos stressed.
I mentioned that, in light of what Fr. Maximos said, it was interesting that many people who have had near-death experiences claim that this is exactly what they learned. What they experienced during the “life review” stage of the near-death experience was that little acts of kindness truly count more on the spiritual scale of growth than great worldly achievements and the acquisition of trophies. Fr. Maximos then pointed out that great success in life can often be a trap that takes us away from the spiritual path because, if we are not careful, it will propel us toward narcissism.
“Stories from the lives of hermits like Abba Agathon,” Fr. Maximos went on, “are didactic for those of us who live in the world. Hermits like him know how to transmute everyday encounters and challenges into steps that lead to God. For them a spiritual life does not simply mean fasting, praying, reading sacred books, or going to church. Such elders are graced with the fruits of chrestotis. They are useful vessels in the hands of God, useful to themselves, and useful and full of sweetness and kindness in their relationships with other human beings.”
~Adapted from Kyriacos C. Markides, Inner River: A Pilgrimage to the Heart of Christian Spirituality
