Beloved Holy Apostles Family,
Yesterday we celebrated the Sunday of St. John Climacus and his acclaimed work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Below you will find spiritual gems from the thirty steps, one from each rung of his blessed Ladder, that can inspire and assist us on our spiritual journeys this Lent. May each maxim, carefully read and pondered, edify and encourage you.
Καλὴ Τεσσαρακοστή!
Blessed Lent!
With love in Christ,
+Fr. George
SPIRITUAL GEMS FROM ST. JOHN CLIMACUS’ LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT
Thirty Pieces of Wisdom from Each Step of this Spiritual Ladder
1. Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me: ‘We have spouses and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life?’ I replied to them: ‘Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be arrogant towards anyone; do not hate anyone; do not be absent from the divine services; be compassionate to the needy; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another person’s domestic happiness, and be content with what your own spouses can give you. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven.’
2. Let us pay close attention to ourselves so that we are not deceived into thinking that we are following the straight and narrow way that leads to the Kingdom, when in actual fact we are keeping to the wide and broad way that leads to perdition.
3. Run from places of sin as from the plague. For when fruit is not present, we have no frequent desire to eat it.
4. He who lives in obedience has eluded the two snares of disobedience and conceit and remains eternally an obedient servant of Christ.
5. Repentance is the renewal of Baptism. Repentance is a contract with God for a second life. Repentance is constant distrust of bodily comfort. Repentance is self-condemning reflection. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the renunciation of despair. Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the practice of good deeds contrary to the sins. Repentance is purification of conscience. Repentance is the voluntary endurance of all afflictions.
6. A vivid remembrance of death cuts down food; and when in humility food is cut, the passions are cut out too.
7. Greater than Baptism itself is the fountain of tears after Baptism, even though it is somewhat audacious to say so. For Baptism is the washing away of evils that were in us before, but sins committed after Baptism are washed away by tears. As Baptism is received in infancy, we have all defiled it, but we cleanse it anew with tears. And if God in His love for humankind had not given us tears, those being saved would be few indeed and hard to find.
8. The beginning of freedom from anger is silence of the lips when the heart is agitated; the middle is silence of the thoughts when there is a mere disturbance of soul; and the end is an imperturbable calm under the breath of unclean winds. As with the appearance of light, darkness retreats; so at the fragrance of humility, all anger and bitterness vanishes.
9. Remembrance of wrongs is the consummation of anger, the keeper of sins, hatred of righteousness, ruin of virtues, poison of the soul, worm of the mind, shame of prayer, cessation of supplication, estrangement of love, a nail stuck in the soul, pleasureless feeling cherished in the sweetness of bitterness, continuous sin, unsleeping transgression, hourly malice. The remembrance of Jesus’ sufferings cures remembrance of wrongs, which is mightily shamed by His forbearance.
10. Listen to me, listen, all you malicious reckoners of other people’s accounts! If it is true (as it really is true) that ‘with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged’ (Matt. 7:2), then whatever sins we blame our neighbor for, whether bodily or spiritual, we shall fall into them ourselves. That is certain. I will not hide this from you: Judas was in the company of Christ’s disciples, and the thief was in the company of murderers. Yet it is a wondrous thing, how in a single instant, they exchanged places.
11. He who has become aware of his sins has controlled his tongue, but a talkative person has not yet come to know himself as he should. Many who bridle the stomach by force, afterwards easily check the tongue and its chatter.
12. He who has obtained the fear of the Lord has forsaken lying, having within himself an incorruptible judge – his own conscience.
13. Despondency (or spiritual sloth) is a paralysis of the soul, a slackness of the mind, neglect of asceticism. It accuses God of being merciless and without love for men. It is being lazy in the singing of psalms, a weakness in prayer. An obedient person does not know such despondency.
14. The mind of a faster prays soberly, but the mind of an intemperate person is filled with impure idols. Satiety of the stomach dries the tear springs, but the stomach when dried produces these waters.
15. Purity means that we put on the angelic nature. Purity is the longed-for house of Christ and the earthly heaven of the heart. Purity is a supernatural denial of nature, which means that a mortal and corruptible body is rivaling the celestial spirits in a truly marvelous way. The Lord, being incorruptible and incorporeal, rejoices in the purity and incorruptibility of our body. But nothing gives such joy to the demons, some say, as the stench of fornication; and no other passion so gladdens them as the defilement of the body.
16. The lover of money sneers at the Gospel, and is a willful transgressor. He who has attained to love scatters his money. But he who says that he lives for love and for money has deceived himself.
17. Non-possessiveness is the resignation of cares, life without anxiety, an unencumbered traveler, alienation from sorrow, fidelity to the commandments. A non-possessive person is lord of the world. He has entrusted his cares to God, and by faith has obtained all men as his servants. He will not tell his need to man, and he receives what comes to him as from the hand of the Lord.
18. Insensibility both in the body and in the spirit is deadened feeling, which, from long sickness and negligence, lapses into loss of feeling. Insensibility is negligence that has become habit, thought gone numb, a snare for zeal, the noose of courage, ignorance of compunction, a door to despair, the mother of forgetfulness which gives birth to loss of the fear of God.
19. In chanting with many, it is impossible to pray with the wordless prayer of the spirit. But your mind should be engaged in contemplation of the words being chanted or read, or you should say some definite prayer while you are waiting for the alternate verse to be chanted.
20. Let us see how we stand before God our King, when we stand at our prayers in the evening, or during the day and night. For some at their evening all-night vigil lift up their hands in prayer, being immaterial and stripped of all care. Others stand at that time chanting psalms. Others are more occupied in reading. And some out of weakness courageously resist sleep by working with their hands. Others immerse themselves in the thought of death, hoping thus to obtain contrition. God accepts and values the offerings of each according to their intention and power.
21. Do not hesitate to go late at night to those places where you usually feel afraid. But if you yield only a little to such weakness, then this childish and ridiculous infirmity of cowardice will grow old with you. As you go on your way, arm yourself with prayer. When you reach the place, stretch out your hands. Flog your enemies with the name of Jesus, for there is no stronger weapon in heaven or earth. When you get rid of the disease of fear, praise Him Who has delivered you. If you continue to be thankful, He will protect you for ever.
22. A vainglorious person is a believing idolater; he apparently honors God, but he wants to please not God but men. Every lover of self-display is vainglorious. The fast of the vainglorious person is without reward and his prayer is futile, because he does both for the praise of men.
23. Pride, and its mother, vainglory, are parents of all the passions. Contrition of heart that is born of obedience is their real enemy. They cannot bear to be subject to anyone. They are the parents of all that opposes humility; for everything which furthers humility opposes them. There is only one thing in which they have no power to meddle: If you keep up a sincere condemnation of yourself before the Lord, you can count them as weak as a cobweb. Holy humility and self-accusation laugh at both these passions.
24. Meekness is the support of patience, the door, or rather, the mother of love, and the foundation of discernment, for it is said: The Lord will teach the meek His ways. It prepares us for the forgiveness of sins; it is boldness in prayer; an abode of the Holy Spirit.
25. He who has been united with humility as his bride is above all gentle, kind, easily moved to compunction, sympathetic, calm, bright, compliant, inoffensive, vigilant, not lazy, and is free from passion; for the Lord remembered us in our humility, and redeemed us from our enemies, and our passions and impurities. Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it; but I affirm this and I worship a Trinity in Unity, and a Unity in Trinity.
26. Let no one on seeing or hearing something supernatural in the monastic way of life fall into unbelief out of ignorance; for where the supernatural God dwells, much that is supernatural happens.
27. Stillness is unceasing worship and waiting upon God. Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with each breath, and then you will know the value of stillness.
28. Prayer, by reason of its nature, is the converse and union of man with God, and by reason of its action upholds the world and brings about reconciliation with God; it is the mother and also the daughter of tears, the propitiation for sins, a bridge over temptations, a wall against afflictions, a crushing of conflicts, a work of angels, the food of all the bodiless spirits, future gladness, unending activity, a source of virtues, a means of obtaining graces, invisible progress, food of the soul, enlightenment of the mind, an axe against despair, a demonstration of hope, a cure for sorrow, the reduction of anger.
29. The person who has been granted the state of freedom from the passions, while still in the body, always has God dwelling within him as his Pilot in all his words, deeds, and thoughts. Therefore, through illumination he apprehends the Lord’s will as a sort of inner voice. The dispassionate man no longer lives himself, but Christ lives in him.
30. And now, finally, after all that we have said, there remain these three that bind and secure the union of all: faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love, for God Himself is so called. He who loves the Lord has first loved his brother, because the second is a proof of the first. Love bestows prophecy; love yields miracles; love is an abyss of illumination; love is a fountain of fire: in the measure that it wells up, it inflames the thirsty soul. Love is the state of angels. Love is the progress of eternity.
