Authors – Page 2 – St John’s Adult Education

Great Lent And The Mystery of the Cross & Resurrection – Short Reflection

By Archimandrite Zacharias from his book ’At The Doors of Holy Lent’

Great Lent is a taste of death in the Name of God, for the sake of our reconciliation with Him, for the sake of His commandment. The little death that that beast, our ego, endures through fasting, through voluntarily bearing shame in the mystery of confession, by shedding streams of wretched tears for our dire poverty and inability to render mighty love unto the Lord; this death places us on the path of Him Who said: ‘I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.’(Rev 1:17-18). This begets in the heart the faith that, ‘If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.’ (Rom 6:8-9). Then on the night of the Resurrection, we sing with boldness the hymn: ‘Yesterday, O Christ, I was buried with Thee and today I rise again with Thy rising. Yesterday I was crucified with Thee: do Thou Thyself glorify me, O Saviour, in thy kingdom.’ Our minor taste of death leavens in the heart and, upon hearing the good news of the Resurrection of Christ, it becomes an explosion of joy, initiating us into the mystery of His descent into hell and ascension above the Heavens.

The Church is preoccupied with only one matter: the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Saint Paul was consumed by the desire to set forth before his disciples the image of Jesus Christ, ‘and Him crucified’ (1 Cor 2:2). In other words, his concern was to impart to them the knowledge of the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, knowing that whosoever walks the way of the Cross will also enter into the presence of the Risen Lord. The Church institutes as a commandment that we should go through this period with spiritual tension for the renewal of our life. She travails to see her children assimilated through obedience into the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ.

Putting All of the Fifth Week of Lent Together – Father Thomas Hopko

At the end of the fifth week of Great Lent, and very particularly on the fifth Sunday, the Orthodox Church has all of its members and faithful Christians contemplating a very beloved and well-known person in Christian history for ancient Christians, and that is a woman named Mary of Egypt. On the matins of the Thursday of the fifth week, there is a penitential canon of St. Andrew of Crete that is read. That particular service, which is a long type of penitential vigil, is often called in Orthodox popular piety “the vigil of Mary of Egypt.” It’s kind of an identification with Mary. In Slavonic, it’s called Marii bodrstvovaniye, the standing with Mary in penance before God. Indeed, in that canon, with all the penitential verses, there are verses that ask Mary of Egypt to intercede for us, to pray for us, as part of the penitential canon. St. Andrew of Crete, the author, is also asked, but particularly Mary of Egypt.

On this Sunday, it’s again kind of a paradox in Orthodox worship, because the focus is now all on Christ. You have that great celebration of the Theotokos with the Akathist on Saturday, and then you enter into the Lord’s Day, and you hear the gospel about Christ going up to Jerusalem and entering into his glory through his suffering. Then even on that Sunday also in the epistle reading, we’ll hear again about how Christ enters into the holy of holies in heaven, not of creation, the sanctuary of God, securing for us an eternal redemption, and that he’s led to offer his blood on the cross through the eternal Holy Spirit where he offers himself without blemish to God and we are encouraged to purify our consciences from dead works in order to serve the living God.

So we are focusing on Christ, but then, with that, you have this whole Sunday when on the one hand you have these marvelous hymns about the resurrection and the victory of Christ on that Sunday, and then you hear even more about this Mary of Egypt. And it’s a kind of a juxtaposition. It’s almost as if the Holy Spirit and God Almighty wants us to keep these two things together. As we focus on Christ and his victory and go up with him to Jerusalem, then we know that this is for everyone and that it is for the worst of sinners. Nobody is excluded, and you can never forget that when you think of Mary of Egypt.

Who was this Mary? It’s interesting that on that Thursday matins with that canon the entire Life of Mary of Egypt is read in church.

…Orthodox Christians in this ancient tradition are called to contemplate that Mary, to remember her. And what’s the point? What’s the point? Oh, there are probably so many, and maybe the points are different for every single person who hears that story, but there’s two points that are for sure. One is that, no matter how sinful we are, the Lord God Almighty forgives us. The other point is that repentance is not just an emotion. It’s not just some kind of magical act. When we repent, we have to purge out of ourselves all of the garbage and filth and slime that’s in us. We have to go through a purgation process before we can be illumined and deified. All that is evil in us has to go: it’s got to be scrubbed away; it’s got to be cut out by the word of God that’s a two-edged sword that cuts the bones and marrows, the sinews, as it says in [the] letter to the Hebrews, the heart of people.

Penance is a work. It is a work. It’s made possible by faith and grace, but it is the result of faith and grace. We know God, we believe in him, we accept his grace, and then that grace purifies us, but it’s not automatic. I can’t resist saying—maybe I shouldn’t on the radio—about how one of my friends would say, “We believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth; and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit. We don’t believe in the Magician, the Mechanic, and the Fairy Godmother.” God is not a fairy godmother. He’s not a magician. He’s not a mechanic. There has to be a synergia between us and God. We have to accept that grace that cleanses us, that heals us, that power, and it’s got to happen, and it takes time. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes perseverance to the end. How often Jesus said, “Those who persevere to the end will be saved.” He says, “In hypomone, in patient endurance you will win your life,” and that repentance is a process; it’s not a momentary act.

Yes, Mary had her conversion experience. Yes, she knew the grace and the love of God at that moment, at that Holy Sepulcher. Yes, she knew that she was saved when she was allowed to enter and to venerate the tomb of Christ and receive the precious gifts of his broken body and spilled blood for the forgiveness of her sins, for the healing of her soul and her body and her passions and emotions and for the attaining of everlasting life. Yeah, that moment took place, and there are many such moments often in people’s lives. But then there is the result of that moment: the ongoing life in conformity to that moment. That’s what we see also in Mary of Egypt.

When I was the dean of St. Vladimir’s and the pastor of the chapel, and of course I was there for 30-some years, I always loved that fifth week of Lent. We had a practice at the seminary chapel that was, for me, at least, incredibly significant and marvelous. This is what it was: We would have those penitential services: the Presanctified on Wednesday with all those prostrations and those 24 additional penitential hymns—“O Lord, before I perish utterly, before I perish to the end, do thou save me, O Lord.” We would sing that canon of Andrew with Mary and keep that vigil on that Thursday. Honestly, we cut it down a bit. We were not monks and monastics there; we had our schedule to live, but we did it. We did it, yes. And then we sang the entire Akathist Hymn the next day, with all that marvelous celebration and veneration of the Theotokos with everything we could possibly think of put into our mouth to celebration the incarnation of the Son of God through her.

And when we sang that Akathist Hymn, we had a quite large icon of the Theotokos, Mother of God, with the Child, and we had it set in the middle of the church, and it was surrounded by flowers. It was decorated by beautiful flowers, and we would stand in front of that icon of the Theotokos, Mary, Mother of God. The deacons would be incensing and the whole church would be singing this marvelous Akathistos Hymn with all those wonderful words. Then we would celebration the Incarnation and Mary on that Saturday in the morning.

And then, on Saturday evening when we would come for the vespers and the matins and the Divine Liturgy of the fifth Sunday of Lent, in that same frame of flowers, on that same stand, the same analoy, in the middle of our same church, would be another icon: an icon of another Mary. Because we would remove the icon of the Theotokos and Child, and in that very same frame of flowers, on that very same stand, in the middle of our very same chapel, we would see Mary of Egypt. What a contrast that was! What an amazing thing it was, that on Saturday we’re glorifying and venerating the incarnation of the Son of God through the All-pure Virgin, of whom is more holy? The most holiest of mere human beings, Christ’s mother, Mary, holding in her arms the Holy One of God, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world. Holiness! Holiness like you cannot imagine! was in that icon in those flowers and in those songs.

And then in the same building, on the same stand, in the same flowers—was Mary of Egypt. And our icon showed her emaciated, sun-burnt, her hair frizzly white, and her face totally beautiful, and even similar to the face of the Theotokos in the iconography. Totally beautiful. And we knew that a nymphomaniac, sexually addicted harlot and even-worse-than-a-harlot human enters the same radiance and the same glory as the Mother of Christ and of all believers. Like Mary, she herself became more honorable than cherubim, more glorious than seraphim, because in Christ everyone who’s saved has that particular glory. We all are enthroned with Christ over all the angels—the twelve apostles sit on twelve thrones, judging the angels, it says in Scripture. We really are deified and enter into the glory of God. That is why Christ was born of a Virgin, and that’s why we venerate his mother so magnificently.

But on this day we know that the worst, the lowliest, the filthiest, the most addicted, the most impassioned, the most possessed, by faith and grace through that same Christ, by the intercessions of his mother and all the saints, can enter into that same glory. And Mary of Egypt tells us that. She shows us that. And then she begins herself to intercede for us poor sinners. Maybe some of us listening are sex-addicted ourselves and nymphos and whatever, controlled and on computers, looking at porno and whatever—but there’s hope for us. There’s hope for us. Mary of Egypt proves there’s hope for us.

But it’s not magic, it’s not mechanical; God is not a fairy godmother. There must be faith, grace accepted and lived out, and that purgation that leads to illumination that leads to glorification, leads to deification—can be ours. If it can be Mary of Egypt’s, then it can be ours. And how wonderful it was to go to church on Saturday of the fifth week and stand in front of that flower-decorated icon of the Theotokos and Child, and to come back again that same night and the next day and to see, in that same place, Mary of Egypt.

Why is the Great Canon done in its entirety in the 5th week of Lent

Remember to check out the Great Canon Resource Page as you prepare

By Fr. Sergei V. Bulgakov

At Matins on this day the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is read in its entirety once a year, which was read in four parts on the first four days of the first week, and the Life of St. Mary of Egypt is read after the Sessional Hymn (Kathisma). According to this feature of the Thursday Matins it is called either the St. Andrew of Crete or the St. Mary of Egypt Thursday.

In the Canon are collected and stated, all the exhortations to fasting and repentance, and the Holy Church repeats it now in its fullness to inspire us new strength for the successful end to Lent. “Since”, it is said in the Synaxarion, “the Holy Forty Day Lent is drawing near the end so that men should not become lazy, or more carelessly disposed to the spiritual efforts, or give up their abstinence altogether,” that this Great Canon is offered. It is “so long, and so well-composed, as to be sufficient to soften even the hardest soul, and to rouse it to resumption of the good, if only it is sung with a contrite heart and proper attention”. And the Church Typikon (Ustav) orders the Great Canon to be read and chanted slowly and “with a contrite heart and voice, making three prostrations at each Troparion”.

For the same purpose of abstinence and strength, and attention to repentance is the reading of the Life of the Venerable Mary of Egypt. According to an explanation of the same Synaxarion, the Life of the Venerable Mary also “manifests infinite compunction and gives much encouragement to the fallen and sinners”, representing itself to us as a paradigm of true repentance, and an example of the unutterable mercy of God. It serves as the continuation of the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete and a transition to the order of the following Sunday. Reading the Canon of St. Andrew and Mary of Egypt on the Thursday of the Fifth Week was established from the time of the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

Kontakion in Plagal of the Second Tone

My soul, my soul, arise. Why are you sleeping? The end is approaching, and you will be confounded. Awake, therefore, that you may be spared by Christ God, Who is everywhere present and fills all things.

4th Sunday of Lent – ‘Lord I Believe; Help My Unbelief’ Adult Education Class

This week we celebrated the mid-point of the Lenten fast. We’ve had the Cross out in the church and heard words that encourage us to enjoin ourselves to the Cross as the not of this world ’refuge of all men’.

The Cross is the haven of the storm-tossed, the guide and support of those that go astray, the glory of Christ, the power of the apostles and the prophets, the strength of God’s athletes, the refuge of all men. We see it set before us in this time of fasting and we venerate it.
Heal my brokenness, O King of all, crucified upon the Cross in thy surpassing love. Thy hands and feet were pierced with nails, Thy side was wounded with the spear, and Thou wast given vinegar and gall to drink, who art the joy of all men, their sweetness, glory and eternal redemption.
The Fast that brings us blessings has now reached its midmost point: it has helped us to receive God’s grace in the days that are past, and it will bring us further benefit in the days still to come. For by continuing in what is right we attain yet greater gifts. We therefore cry to Christ, the Giver of all good: O Thou who for our sakes hast fasted and endured the Cross, make us worthy to share uncondemned in Thy divine Passover. May we spend our lives in peace and rightly glorify Thee with the Father and the Spirit.
Triodion Matins/Vespers Wednesday/Friday 4th Week

This Sunday we venerate St. John Climacus and his great work ’The Ladder of Divine Ascent’. In our Vigil we’ll sing these powerful words that unite him to the Cross and as a guide for our own Lenten journeys.

O holy father John, through faith thou hast lifted up thy mind on wings to God; hating the restless confusion of this world, thou has taken up thy Cross; and following Him who sees all things, though has subjected thy rebellious body to His guidance through ascetic discipline, by the power of the Holy Spirit
O holy father John, truly hast though ever carried on thy lips the praises of the Lord, and with great wisdom has thou studied the words of Holy Scripture that teach us how to practice the ascetic life. So hast thou gained the riches of grace, and thou has become blessed, overthrowing all the purposes of the ungodly.
Triodion Vespers 4th Sunday of Lent

During this week’s class time, I’d like us to focus on the Gospel reading (Mark 9: 17-31) for today and the humility and honesty of the appeal ’Lord I believe, help my unbelief’. I’d also like us to do a deep dive into the Prayer of St. Ephraim and what lessons it has for us as we now enter the second half of our Lenten journey.

I’ll print the following articles for our class Sunday:

During the week, I posted some additional articles that you may find relevant and useful as we prepare for class:

“Lord I Believe ; Help My Unbelief”- Homily for 4th Sunday of Lent

Father Phillip LeMasters

Sometimes we stand before God with more doubt than belief, with more despair than hope. Sometimes our worries and fears increase; the joy of life slips away and we feel rotten. Maybe it’s our health, the problems of our loved ones, stress about a busy schedule, or other matters at home, at work, or with our friends. We are sometimes simply at the end of our rope.

If you feel that way today or ever have in your life, you can begin to sympathize with the father of the demon-possessed young man in today’s gospel reading. Since childhood, his son had had life-threatening seizures and convulsions. With the broken heart of a parent who has little hope for his child’s healing, the man cries out, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Christ’s disciples had lacked the spiritual strength to cast out the demon, but the Lord Himself healed him. We can only imagine how grateful the man and his son were for this blessing.

And imagine how embarrassed the disciples were. The Lord had referred to them as part of a “faithless generation” and asked how long he would have to put with them. He told them that demons like this “can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting,” spiritual exercises designed to strengthen our faith and to purify our souls. Not only were the disciples unable to cast out the demon, they could not even understand the Savior’s prediction of His own death and resurrection. At this point in the journey, they were not great models of faithfulness.

In fact, the best example of faithfulness in this story is the unnamed father. He wants help for his child, and he tells the truth about himself. His faith was imperfect; he had doubts; his hopes for his son’s healing had been crushed many times before. He said to Christ, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us.” In other words, he wasn’t entirely sure if the Lord could heal his son. All that he could do was to cry out with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

And in doing so, he showed that he had the spiritual clarity that the disciples lacked, for he knew the weakness of his faith. Still, with every ounce of his being He called to the Lord for mercy. He received it and the young man was set free.

If we have taken Lent seriously at all this year, we will have become at least a bit like this honest father when our struggles with spiritual disciplines have shown us our weakness. When we pray, we often welcome distractions; and it’s so easy not to pray at all. When we set out to fast from food or something else to which we have become too attached, we often become angry and frustrated. When we try to forgive and be reconciled with others, memories of past wrongs and fears about the future often overcome our good intentions. We wrestle with our passions just a bit, and they get the better of us. We so easily do, think, and say things that aren’t holy at all. We put so much else before loving God and our neighbors. Lent is good at breaking down our illusions of holiness, at giving us a clearer picture of our spiritual state. And often we don’t like what we see.

If that’s where you are today, take heart, for Jesus Christ came to show mercy upon people like the father in our gospel lesson. That man knew his weakness, he did not try to hide it, and he honestly threw himself on the mercy of the Lord. He made no excuses; he did not justify himself; he did not complain. He did not hide his doubt and frustration before God. He did not wallow in wounded pride, obsess about his imperfections, or worry about what someone else would think of him. Instead, he simply acknowledged the truth about his situation and called upon Christ with every ounce of his being for help with a problem that had broken his heart.

We don’t know how religious this man appeared to anyone else. Perhaps his fasting had been his many years of selfless struggle to care for his son; perhaps his prayers had always been focused on the boy’s healing. But we do know that this man, in humility and honesty, received the mercy of Jesus Christ when he called to Him.

With whatever level of spiritual clarity we possess, with whatever amount of faith in our souls, with whatever doubts, fears, weaknesses, and sins that beset us, let us all follow his example of opening the wounds of our hearts and lives to the Lord. Jesus Christ heard this man’s prayer; He brought new life to his son. And He will do the same for us, when we fall before Him in honest repentance, knowing that our only hope is in the great mercy that He has always shown to sinners like you and me whose faith leaves a lot to be desired.

If we need a reminder of the importance of taking Confession this Lent, this gospel passage should help us. Christ did not reject a father who was brutally honest about his imperfect faith, but instead responded to his confession with abundant grace, healing, and love. He will do the same for each of us who stand before His icon with the humble plea for forgiveness, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” There is no better way to prepare to follow our Savior to the agony of the cross and the joy of the empty tomb.

Finding ‘God With Us’

I love this short article. It’s powerful in waking us up to what Archbishop Kallistos Ware describes as being ’conscious of our dependance on God’. It’s also helpful in relating our cross to His as we venerate the Cross this week. It’s helpful for me to remain clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it as we now now enter the home stretch of our Lenten journey together.

God With Us – By Father Stephen Freeman

Popular New Age thought postulates that everyone has a “god within.” It’s a pleasant way of saying that we’re all special while making “god” to be rather banal. But there is a clear teaching of classical Christianity regarding Christ-within-us, and it is essential to the Orthodox way of life.

We should not understand our relationship with God to be an “external” matter, as if we were one individual and God another. Our union with God, birthed in us at Holy Baptism, is far more profound.

“He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (1Co 6:17)

God does not “help” us in the manner of encouraging us or simply arranging for things to work out. Rather, He is in us, working in union with our work. The mystery of ascesis (the practice of prayer, fasting, self-denial, etc.) only makes true sense in this context. Those who look at Orthodoxy from the outside often accuse us of practicing “works-righteousness,” meaning that we believe we can earn favor with God by doing good works. This is utterly false. God’s good favor is His gift and cannot be earned.

However, the Orthodox life is similar to the life of Christ Himself.

“Truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. (Joh 5:19)

and

“Truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. (Joh 14:12)

The “works” that a Christian does, are properly done in union with Christ, such that the works are not those of an individual, but of our common life with and in Christ. When we fast, it is Christ who fasts in us. When we pray, it is Christ who prays in us. When we give alms it is Christ who gives alms in us.

And we should understand that Christ-in-us longs to fast. Christ-in-us longs to pray. Christ-in-us longs to show mercy. The disciplines of the Church are not a prescription for behaving ourselves or a map of moral perfection. Rather, the commandments of Christ (as manifest in the life of the Church) are themselves a description, an icon of Christ Himself.

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” (Joh 14:2)

Dumitru Staniloae notes:

At the beginning Christ is, so to speak, buried in the commandments and in us, in the measure in which we are committed to them, by His power which is in us. By this collaboration we gain the virtues as living traits; they reflect the image of the Lord, and Christ is raised even brighter from under these veils. (Orthodox Spirituality)

This way of “union” is the very heart of Orthodox faith and practice. Sadly, much of Christianity has created an “extrinsic” view of our relationship with God and the path of salvation. In this, God is seen as exterior to our life, our relationship with Him being analogous to the individualized contractual relationships of modern culture. As such the Christian relationship with God is reduced to psychology and morality.

It is reduced to psychology in that the concern is shifted to God’s “attitude” towards us. The psychologized atonement concerns itself with God’s wrath. It is reduced to morality in that our behavior is no more than our private efforts to conform to an external set of rules and norms. We are considered “good” or “bad” based on our performance, but without regard to the nature of that performance. St. Paul says that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Only our lives-lived-in-union-with-Christ have the nature of true salvation, true humanity. This is the proper meaning of being “saved by grace.”

…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for Hisgood pleasure. (Phi 2:13)

and

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1Jo 4:4)

and

To them, God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col 1:27)

There is a second part of this mystery (Christ in us) that presses its importance upon us. This is the suffering of Christ within us. Fr. Staniloae writes:

Jesus takes part in all our sufferings, making them easier. He helps us with our struggle against temptations and sin; He strives with us in our quest for virtues: He uncovers our true nature from under the leaves of sin. St. Maximus comments: Until the end of the world He always suffers with us, secretly, because of His goodness according to [and in proportion to] the suffering found in each one.

The Cross recapitulates the suffering and sin of humanity, but it extends throughout the life and experience of all people. It is the foundation of Christ’s statement: “Inasmuch as you did it [did it not] unto the least of these my brethren, you did it [did it not] unto me.

The hypostatic union of the person of Christ extends into the life of every person. There is something of a perichoresis or coinherence in our daily relationship with Christ.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (1Co 12:26)

This must be given the strongest possible reading. If any one of us suffers, Christ suffers. There is no specific human suffering to which Christ is alien.

It is the moment-by-moment pressing into this commonality (koinonia) that is the foundation of Christian existence. It is the point of Baptism (buried with Him). It is the point of the Eucharist (“whosoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him”). It is the point of every action and thought.

It is the life of grace.

Part I & II in the Steps of the Ladder of Divine Ascent

Father Vassilios Papavassiliou in his excellent book, Thirty Steps To Heaven, groups the 30 steps from the Ladder Of Divine Ascent into 7 parts. This article will examine the first two of these parts in some detail. Each step begins with a high level quote from the Ladder that outlines the step. This quote is then followed by a short extract of Father Papavassiliou’s commentary for that step. The article also outlines the additional parts and the steps associated with them.

Part 1 – Break With The World

Step 1 – Renunciation

A friend of God is the one who lives in communion with all that is natural and free from sin and who does not neglect to do what good he can. The self-controlled man strives with all his might amidst the trials, the snares, and the noise of the world, to be like someone who rises above them.

Every Christian is called to a life of renunciation: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it” (Luke 9: 23–24).

Before baptism, we “renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his angels, and all his worship, and all his solemn rites.”

Christ tells us, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight . . . but now My kingdom is not from here” (John 18: 36). Therefore, those who follow Him are not of the world either: “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John15:19)

St. Paul warns us, ”Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world” (Rom. 12:2)

Step 2 – Detachment

Derided, mocked, jeered, you must accept the denial of your will. You must patiently endure opposition, suffer neglect without complaint, put up with violent arrogance. You must be ready for injustice, and not grieve when you are slandered; you must not be angered by contempt and you must show humility when you have been condemned. Happy are those who follow this road and avoid other highways. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Detachment from pride is the imitation of Christ, because if anyone did not deserve to be derided, mocked, jeered, beaten, and put to death, it is Christ. Who are we to think that we deserve better than He? “Yet our pride makes us think we deserve respect, dignity, comfort. And if we think as the world thinks, we may be right. Wicked people do wicked things and get everything they want, while good people suffer. Where is the justice in that? But as Christians who have renounced the ways and, indeed, the justice of the world (for Christ’s sacrifice was by no means justice, but mercy), we are to compare ourselves not to others, but to Christ alone.

Step 3 – Exile

Exile is a disciplined heart, unheralded wisdom, an unpublicized understanding, a hidden life, masked ideals. It is unseen meditation, the striving to be humble, a wish for poverty, the longing for what is divine. It is an outpouring of love, a denial of vainglory, a depth of silence. . . . Yet for all that it is praiseworthy, it requires discretion, since not every kind of exile is good if taken to extremes.

If we have renounced the world and detached ourselves from worldly ways, then we live on this earth as exiles. “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come” (Heb. 13: 14). St. John Chrysostom writes:

If you are a Christian, no earthly city is yours. Of our City “the Builder and Maker is God.” [Heb. 11: 10] Though we may gain possession of the whole world, we are withal but strangers and sojourners in it all! We are enrolled in heaven: our citizenship is there! 5

Spiritual exile often means that we have very different, sometimes completely opposite, values from the world in which we live. Consider the above passage from the Ladder and how against the grain of worldly standards this is. We live in an age where self-promotion, competition, wealth, and fame are considered good. For some, these things constitute the very goal of life. To live as an exile, on the other hand, is to remain unheralded, unpublicized, hidden, masked, unseen; it is the striving to be humble, a wish for poverty . . . a denial of vainglory.

Christians are not often exempt from the desire for fame, self-promotion, and worldly glory. A great temptation for us Christians is to use our faith as a pious excuse for satisfying these passions, all the while fooling ourselves into thinking that some higher purpose is what motivates us. So often we want everything we do for the Church, every good deed, every effort we make in Christ’s name, to be praised, announced, and publicized. It is so easy to say to oneself, “I am doing it for God,” “I must spread the gospel,” “I must share my faith,” “I must be the light of the world,” when our true motive is to satisfy our ego. This is why detachment precedes exile. For only when we have detached ourselves from the things of this world can we sincerely act in God’s name, and not in our own, while using “God” or “Church” as a cloak to cover our otherwise naked vanity.

But St. John also warns us that exile requires discretion, since not every kind of exile is good if taken to extremes.

Part 2 – The Fundamental Virtues

Step 4 – Obedience

Obedience is unquestioned movement, death freely accepted, a simple life, danger faced without worry, an unprepared defense before God, fearlessness before death, a safe voyage, a sleeper’s journey. Obedience is the burial place of the will and the resurrection of lowliness.

The first fundamental virtue of the Ladder is obedience. As flower comes before every fruit, so exile of body or will precedes all obedience. But why is obedience a virtue? Many regard it as something for the weak, something that does not become a “real man.” The only time it is tolerated is when it is considered a necessity. If soldiers did not obey their commanding officers, the army would be a shambles, and this in turn would threaten national security.

But this is not the obedience of which we speak. The virtue of obedience is rooted not in fearful pragmatism, but in humility. True obedience, like true love, cannot be forced—it must be free. Obedience and humility go hand in hand. They feed and nourish one another. We cannot learn obedience without humility, and we cannot acquire humility without obedience. Together, these two virtues can take us to the very heights of spiritual perfection.

From obedience comes humility. . . . And from humility comes discernment. Take courage from this. For if you are able to do something as basic and simple as to obey, then you are already on your way to learning one of the greatest and highest virtues of all: humility.

Step 5 – Repentance

Repentance is the renewal of baptism and is a contract with God for a fresh start in life.

The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means “to have a change of heart or mind,” while the Greek word for sin, hamartia, means “to miss the mark.” Now if sin means missing the mark, then repentance means getting back on target. It is only when we understand repentance in this way that we can comprehend it as an ongoing, positive, and creative process.

Repentance lies at the very heart of Christian life. The preaching of our Lord Himself began with repentance: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4: 17). All orthodox Christians have taught that there is no salvation without it. St. John of the Ladder is no exception:

It is impossible for those of us who have fallen into the sink of iniquity ever to be drawn out of it unless we also plumb the depths of the humility shown by the penitent.

It is clear that repentance, like obedience, is rooted in humility. A proud person cannot repent, for repentance allows no room for ego and conceit. Pride blinds us to our own sins, while we go on hating those very same sins when we see them in others. Humility alone is capable of seeing the truth, of enabling us to see ourselves as we really are.

Step 6 – Remembrance of Death

The remembrance of death . . . produces freedom from daily worries and breeds constant prayer and guarding of the mind, virtues that are the cause and the effect of the thought of death.

Many of us live in a death-denying culture. People do not want to talk about death or even think about it, as though pretending it will never happen can somehow stop its inevitability. While phrases such as “death comes to us all” and “death is a natural part of life” have become clichés, deep down many behave as though death only happened to other people—people they do not know or like or care about. When a loved one dies, even at a ripe old age, the faith of some Christians is shaken. This is because we are so busy driving the remembrance of death from our minds that we actually forget it is a certain and unavoidable fact.

On the one hand, the fear of death is natural, but we must not confuse this natural fear and the survival instinct with an unhealthy terror. As St. John writes:

Fear of death is a property of nature due to disobedience, but terror of death is a sign of unrepented sins. . . . Tin has a way of looking like silver but is of course quite different; and for those with discernment, the difference between natural and contranatural fear of death is most obvious. You can clearly single out those who hold the thought of death at the center of their being, for they freely withdraw from everything created and they renounce their will. . . . The Fathers assert that perfect love is sinless. And it seems to me that in the same way a perfect sense of death is free from fear.

The remembrance of death is closely linked to repentance, which is why it is the step that follows it. All Fathers of the Orthodox Church have taught that repentance is the purpose of our life. Death brings repentance to an end. What follows death is the fulfillment and consummation of our relationship with God here and now. So in Christian spirituality, the remembrance of death is, above all else, the remembrance of the Judgement.

Step 7 – Mourning

The tears that come after baptism are greater than baptism itself, though it may seem rash to say so. Baptism washes off those evils that were previously within us, whereas the sins committed after baptism are washed away by tears. The baptism received by us as children we have all defiled, but we cleanse it anew with our tears.

Repentance and meditation on death lead to mourning. Thus mourning is the step that follows them. But the mourning of which St. John speaks is not the kind we are all accustomed to. The Ladder refers to tears and mourning as a divine gift. It is a gift difficult for those who do not possess it to understand, and it is not easy to distinguish between natural tears and divinely given tears. As St. John writes:

Many of the Fathers declare that this problem of tears, especially where it concerns beginners, is a very obscure matter and hard to analyze since tears can come about in various ways. Tears come from nature, from God, from suffering good and bad, from vainglory, from licentiousness, from love, from remembrance of death, and from numerous other causes. Having trained ourselves in all these ways by the fear of God, let us acquire the pure and guileless tears that come with the remembrance that we must die. There is nothing false in these, no sop to self-esteem. Rather do they purify us, lead us on in love of God, wash away our sins and drain away our passions.

Step 8 – Meekness / Loss of Anger

Meekness is a permanent condition of the soul which remains unaffected by whether or not it is spoken well of, whether or not it is honored or praised.

We tend to think of meekness as a personality trait. When we hear the word meek, we usually think of someone softly spoken, easily pushed around, someone who never raises his voice, maybe even someone who is weak. But meekness is not the same as weakness, nor is it a particular kind of personality; it is a virtue, and, like all virtues, it cannot be judged by externals.

Our Lord described Himself as meek (Matt. 11: 29), yet He smashed up the markets outside the temple in Jerusalem (John 2: 13–22); He denounced the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees as “hypocrites” and a “brood of vipers” and told them they were going to hell (Matt. 23: 13–33). He frequently rebuked His apostles and admonished the Israelites for their faithlessness (Luke 9: 41). He was no pushover, until He voluntarily gave Himself up to humiliation, violence, and death, even though as God He had the power—and, indeed, the right—to destroy His oppressors on the spot.

As Christians we are called to take up Christ’s yoke and imitate His meekness. This does not mean we are called to be doormats. Instead it means we are to endure wrongs humbly and patiently and to let go of our anger, which is the fruit of pride.

Part 3 – The Spiritual Passions

Step 9 – Remembrance of Wrongs/ Malice

Step 10 – Slander

Step 11 – Talkativeness and Silence

Step 12 – Falsehood

Step 13 – Despondency / Tedium

Part 4 – The Physical Passions

Step 14 Gluttony

Step 15 – Lust and Chastity

Step 16 – Avarice

Step 17 – Poverty

Part 5 – The Spiritual Passions (Continued)

Step 18 – Insensitivity / Lack of Awareness

Step 19 – Sleep, Prayer, and Church

Step 20 – Alertness

Step 21 – Fear

Step 22 – Vainglory

Step 23 – Pride

Part 6 – The Higher Virtues

Step 24 – Meekness/Simplicity

Step 25 – Humility

Step 26 – Discernment

Part 7 Union with God

Step 27 – Stillness

Step 28 – Prayer

Step 29 – Dispassion

Step 30 – Faith, Hope, and Love

Who is St. John Climacus and what is ’The Ladder of Divine Ascent’?

Father Vassilios Papavassiliou has written a book entitled ’Thirty Steps to Heaven’ about St. John Climacus’s famous book ’The Ladder of Divine Ascent’. This extract is from his introduction to his book which does a good job of making the principles of this classic more accessible to the modern day layperson

God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from the passions or caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated or the illiterate, of the healthy or the sick, of the young or the very old.
St. John Climacus

The Ladder of Divine Ascent is undoubtedly one of the most influential Christian texts ever written. Its author, St. John, is named after it—St. John Climacus (of the Ladder). He is known also as St. John of Sinai, the mountain in Egypt on which Moses saw God and received the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 3 and 31: 18), where John was a monk at the Monastery of St. Catherine.

The earliest record of monastic life on Sinai is from a travel journal written sometime between AD 381 and 384. When John arrived at St. Catherine’s Monastery at the age of sixteen, probably in the latter half of the sixth century, the monastic community was already well established. Three forms of monasticism were practiced on Sinai at that time: the communal, or cenobitic, form (a brotherhood living a life of common prayer and worship and shared resources, under the guidance of an abbot); the solitary, or eremitic, form (hermits, or anchorites, living alone in the surrounding desert); and the semi-eremitic form (small monastic communities, or sketes, consisting of a spiritual father and one or two other monks living together near the monastery grounds).

St. John of the Ladder came to experience all three forms of monasticism. Initially he lived the semi-eremitic life and then became an anchorite. During that time as a hermit, he occasionally received visitors—mostly fellow monks—and he soon developed a reputation for holiness and spiritual insight. After forty years as a solitary, he was elected abbot of St. Catherine’s Monastery.

It was during his time as abbot of the monastic brotherhood of St. Catherine that John wrote the Ladder of Divine Ascent, in response to a request from another abbot for a spiritual manual for monks. The Ladder describes in thirty steps the monk’s desired progress on the path of spiritual perfection. Soon after writing it, St. John resigned from his position as abbot and returned to solitude until his death, around the middle of the seventh century.

The influence of the Ladder soon extended beyond the monastic communities, and it has been read and loved by laypeople for centuries. Even outside of monasteries, where it is read liturgically during the Hours, many Orthodox Christians read the Ladder during Lent. Notwithstanding the book’s popularity, it is not always easy for normal laypeople to apply its teachings to their own lives—lives very different indeed from that which the Ladder addresses. Therefore, simple commentaries such as this (albeit written by someone far less advanced in the spiritual life than St. John) can be helpful.

While it would be misleading or even dangerous to deny that the Ladder was written exclusively for monks, by the same token it would be wrong to conclude from this that others have nothing at all to gain from reading monastic literature. But those who read such books should do so with discernment, particularly with guides or manuals such as the Ladder. It can be detrimental for a beginner to attempt the ascetical feats and religious practices and devotions of a seasoned veteran of the spiritual arena. But there is gold in the Ladder for all of us, if we have the diligence to seek it out and the maturity to sift through those things that are clearly not meant for us.

Another aspect of the Ladder of Divine Ascent worth considering is the very image of a ladder, of a climb and upward journey. Our spiritual journey requires patience and dogged persistence—taking one step at a time. Many have been speedily forgiven their sins. But no one has rapidly acquired dispassion, for this requires much time and longing, and God. No one can climb the entire ladder in a single stride. Nor do the steps of the ladder necessarily come in the same order for all people. One person struggles with a certain passion that another easily masters; yet the latter struggles far more with a different passion that the former easily overcomes. In other words, what is step ten for one person could be step twenty for another, and any given step may take many years to master.

We must not be impatient or hasty, for the climb is perilous. There is always a danger in seeking what is beyond our immediate reach. The famous icon of the Ladder of Divine Ascent clearly illustrates this—depicting monks falling from the heights into the abyss. Complacency and self-certainty are the most dangerous delusions we encounter in the spiritual life, and they are particularly acute for the most devout Christians. We would also do well to remember that spiritual perfection cannot be attained even by the saints. For dispassion is an uncompleted perfection of the perfect, while the last step of the Ladder, which is love, is an eternal step that we will never reach the end of, neither in this life nor in the world to come:

Love has no boundary, and both in the present and in the future age we will never cease to progress in it, as we add light to light.
St. John Climacus

If the spiritual battle seems hopeless and the struggle too much for you, do not be disheartened and do not give up. Our progress in virtue can often seem less like a ladder of ascent and more like a game of chutes and ladders. It would be wrong and a misunderstanding of St. John’s teaching to think that those who fail to reach the heights of spiritual perfection in this life are doomed: Not everyone can achieve dispassion. But all can be saved and can be reconciled to God. Falling and getting up again, starting over—this is what repentance and Christian devotion are all about.

One final word of warning: Very few people indeed will have climbed all thirty steps of the Ladder of Divine Ascent. If you think you have, you probably need to go back to the beginning.

3rd Sunday Of Lent Adult Education Class – Annunciation with the Cross

The icon above is specific to this unique week when we celebrate both the Feast of the Annunciation Friday and the Veneration of the Cross on Sunday. As you know, Pascha is a variable feast but the Annunciation is always on March 25th … 9 months before Nativity. So, this feast falls in a wide variety of places in our Lenten journey. Below is an extract from a homily entitled ’The Annunciation with the Cross’ that was delivered in the 1930’s by Father Sergius Bulgakov. I think he has some great insights for us to discuss in today’s class that capture the unique picture we have of both the Annunciation and the Cross this week.

The Annunciation is a direct testimony about God’s love for the world. Love is sacrificial by its very nature; the power of love is the measure of the sacrifice. God’s love is immeasurable and inexplicable in its sacrificial character, which partakes of the way of the cross. God who is in the Trinity renounces Himself from all eternity in the reciprocal love of the Three Hypostases; for ”God is love,” and ”the unfathomable divine power of the holy and glorious Cross” is the power of God’s life – of all conquering , immeasurable love in the depths of Holy Trinity itself. God-Love … the pre-eternal Love of the cross – raises a new cross for the sake of His love for creation. He gives the world a place of being alongside Himself; He renounces Himself for the sake of the world, voluntarily limiting Himself to allow creation in its limitedness to find itself in its slow and arduous development.

The world is created by the cross of God’s love. It is also saved by the cross, for, in its creaturely infirmity, the self-sufficient world contains the possibility of sin and of falling away from God, which is unrestrainable. Once it occurs, this falling away leads to the fatal disintegration of the world. In response to this possibility, God in His pre-eternal counsel already raises the cross of sacrificial love in the divine incarnation for the sake of the world: ”God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (John 3:16). The Son is sent into the world in order to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29), in order to suffer out this sin unto the death on the Cross. And this pre-eternal counsel is accomplished by God’s love, by the power of the Cross. That which manifests the power of the Cross in the heavens is , on earth among the sons of me, the joy of the Annunciation; for there is no true joy without the Cross.

The Annunciation itself contains news of the Cross; and with a heavy cross upon the Most Pure Virgin, who now renounces all things that pertain to selfhood and entrusts herself to the power of the Lord. She accepts the sword that will pierce her heart. Her Son’s way of the cross is also her own. The joy of the Annunciation is accomplished through the cross and finds it foundation in the cross.

This week I’d like us to review two articles in some detail. I’ll print these articles out:

Here are the other articles posted this week that may be very relevant to our discussions and our Lenten journey:

How to Say Yes to God: Homily for the Feast of the Annunciation

By Father Phillip LeMasters

Today we celebrate the very best example of how to live faithfully as a human being before God with the feast of the Annunciation. When the Archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was to become the Theotokos, she freely accepted this extraordinary calling when she said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” When she offered herself to become the Living Temple of God, she played a crucial role in how the Savior would “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.” In opening her life without reservation to Christ, she made it possible for Him to “share in flesh and blood” and participate in our humanity so “that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

By conventional human standards, this teenage girl had no power or prominence at all. No one in first-century Palestine would have been inclined to look to her as having a role in delivering them from anything. But through her courage in accepting a calling that would impact every dimension of her life in ways that she could not possibly have fully understood, the Theotokos became a fierce warrior against evil because she broke the cycle of disobedience that went back to the rebellion of our first parents. They chose satisfying their own self-centered desires over obeying the Lord and becoming more like Him in holiness. She chose, instead, to say “yes” without reservation to the point of sharing her own flesh and blood with the Son of God, and of loving and serving Him throughout His earthly life, even as He hung on the Cross. She is the New Eve through whom the Second Adam became one of us for our salvation.

In order for the Savior to be fully divine and fully human, He had to be born of a woman. In order for Him to be the Great High Priest Who offered Himself fully on the Cross to conquer the power of death, the Messiah “had to be made like His brethren in every respect.” The Theotokos’ offering of herself in free obedience made it possible for Him to do that. Here we encounter the great mystery of divine-human cooperation or synergy, for God always respects our freedom as unique persons in responding to His will. God did not choose the Virgin Mary randomly, but prepared for her across the generations of the Hebrew people, culminating in the aged, barren couple of Joachim and Anna. Like Abraham and Sarah before them, they did not conceive simply by their own youthful physical abilities, but after painful decades of childlessness due to the miraculous blessing of the Lord. John the Baptist was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth in the same way.

These elderly parents of newborns bear witness that something very different from birth into a world dominated by the fear of death has arrived. Now a new age of the fulfillment of God’s promises has dawned. It is fulfilled through a young girl’s amazing obedience, as the Savior becomes an unborn Child in her womb. She conceived and gave birth without passion, without a husband, and in a way that preserved her virginity. In the Theotokos’ astounding offering of herself to the Lord, the brokenness and corruption of our humanity is unwound and undone. This New Eve does not choose the satisfaction of her own desires over obedience to God, but opens every dimension of her being to share in His life. Through her, the New Adam is born Who heals all the corruption of the first.

Remember, however, that neither our Savior nor the Theotokos is a conventional hero. Instead of destroying His enemies through brute force, the Lord submitted to the ultimate humiliation of crucifixion, death, burial in a tomb, and descent to Hades in order to deliver us from captivity to fear of the grave and to bring us into the joy of eternal life. He does not inflict suffering upon others, but takes it upon Himself purely for our sake. The Theotokos was a young virgin, unmarried and of no particular importance in her society. Her unwed pregnancy was scandalous and certainly not a path to a conventional life. Eventually, she saw her Son and God condemned as a blasphemer and a traitor, and then nailed to the Cross. Her purity and blessedness were surely hidden from the world and known only to those who had the eyes to see her Son as the Savior, not in spite of His Passion, but because of it.

We must use the spiritual disciplines of Lent to become more like the Theotokos in her complete obedience and receptivity to the Lord. The Archangel announced her unique calling to which she said “yes.” Through her, the Son of God united Himself with humanity. Our calling, then, is to become like her in hearing and responding to God’s calling as we unite ourselves personally with Him.

If we believe the good news of this feast, then we may shut off no part of our lives from communion with Christ in holiness. His becoming the God-Man calls us to follow the example of the Theotokos in receiving Him in a fashion that transforms every dimension of our life into a sign of His salvation. That is a tall order that we probably cannot image we would ever fulfill. We likely cannot even begin to understand how that could be possible for people like us who are gravely weakened by our sins and the slaves of our self-centered desires.

By this point in Lent, we may have a clearer sense of how hard it is to open our lives to Christ through prayer, fasting, generosity, forgiveness, and repentance. We undertake these practices so poorly and feebly, often gaining a stronger sense of our weakness than of peace, blessedness, and joy. If we have embraced the season with integrity so far, Lent will have opened our eyes a bit to the true state of our souls; and if we are honest, there is much there that we do not like to see. Though that may seem like bad news, it is actually exactly what we need. For if we are to grow in personal union with the Lord, we have to get over any self-righteous illusions that would drown out the message we need to hear. If we are to learn to say “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” we must do so as the particular people we truly are. If we try to relate to God with some kind of imaginary holiness or religiosity, we will do more harm than good to our souls. We may be able to fool ourselves, but we can never fool God.

Through the Theotokos’s response to the message of the Archangel, the Savior became one of us, uniting divinity and humanity in His own Person. By His grace, He calls and enables each of us to find the healing of our souls by sharing in His blessed life. As the Lenten journey continues with all its struggles, we have the opportunity to gain the spiritual strength to receive Him more fully as we grow into the unique persons He created us to be in His image and likeness. Let us look to the Theotokos as our hero, our great example, of what happens when a humble, obedient person says “yes” to God from the depths of her soul. There is no way other than becoming more like her to open ourselves to the victory over the fear of death that her Son accomplished through His Cross and glorious resurrection on the third day.