Thoughts on Beginning Spiritual Life

Suffering

2010-07-22T08:39:00.003-05:00

"If God is all-knowing, all-mighty and all-powerful, why is there so much Evil and suffering in this world?"

Dearly beloved,

This is an important question, to which I will only be able to give a brief answer.

God is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-mighty, all-powerful). He is also infinitely loving. God created all things, and mankind specifically, out of love. His desire is to give us the greatest thing which could possibly be given by God to His creation – the opportunity to enter into a relationship of love with Him.

A relationship of love can only be entered into by the free-will choice of those involved in that relationship. God gave man free will so that he could choose to love. Giving man that free will also carries the risk that man would choose false self-love over true love; choose selfishness, choose to use people rather than to love them, choose indifference, choose hate – choose sin. A great deal of the “evil and suffering” in this world is the result of our misuse of our free will, man’s inhumanity to man.

In addition to this man made “evil and suffering”, there are also natural disasters of many types, sickness, accidents, and the ultimate reality of death which comes to all of us. It is this combination of things which I presume the questioner was referring to when they said “evil and suffering”.

I would now like to make a distinction between God’s will and God’s providence. God’s will is what He wants to have happen. God’s providence is what is under His control. Because God is omniscient and omnipotent, everything that happens is within His providence. But, because God gave us free will, our own will, He gave us the power, within the limits of our being, to do things that are not His will. So, while everything is in God’s providence, not everything is according to His will.

When man chooses to sin, God could cut him off, stop him in his tracks. Of course then man’s free will would be gone, and along with it the possibility of choosing to turn again and love God. Instead, God gives man some space; permits him to sin, permits him to see the consequences of his sin (evil and suffering), gives him the opportunity to learn, to gain the knowledge of good and evil, and the ability to choose on his own to return to the good. This is the same thing every parent does with their child, who has to grow from an infant through rebellious youth and (hopefully) to a mature choice to love the parent that has always loved them.

However, while God permits man to violate His will, He continues to keep everything within His Providence. He permits sin and its consequences, giving us both free will and the opportunity to see firsthand why we should choose love and not sin. But he holds us back from the full destruction of sin by limiting our power, limiting our opportunity. If He didn’t we would long since have destroyed ourselves completely. In addition to reining in our sin, through His providence He arranges everything so that there is always a pathway for us to return, always a possibility of repentance, a possibility to turn back from sin and toward divine love.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Divine providence is God’s ability to “make the evil be good by His goodness”. Things which appear to be “evil and suffering”, through the power of God’s love and our participation in that love, actually become sources of good and of love themselves.

How many times families which are estranged wake up when one member has a serious illness, realizing that their arguments are petty and insignificant, reuniting in love? How many times have economic problems made people realize that material things are not what is really valuable? How many times has a natural disaster helped people see that they have more in common than what divides them? How many times have wars helped people value peace? How many times, during a terrible trial, has someone risen up, someone we never would have guessed, faced seemingly insurmountable odds, and inspired us all with the courage behind their love? How many times have people of faith, faced with the skepticism and derision of non-believers, learned better how to understand their own faith and become closer to God? How many times have people achieved all their earthly goals and only then come to see that these are lesser, that our true goal and destiny lies in God?

Virtue becomes real only when it is tested. Love becomes stronger as it overcomes difficulties. The end of our life on this earth is the beginning of our life in heaven, just as the end of our life in the womb was the beginning of our life here.

A tiny baby only knows that the needle hurts; The nurse knows that the shot is good. The child throwing a tantrum doesn’t understand why their mother isn’t giving them what they want. God’s wisdom is infinitely greater than ours. We cannot bridge this gap to understand His wisdom. We have to trust Him; We have to have faith.

“why is there so much Evil and suffering in this world?"

So that we can choose to love. So that we can find, through it, a path toward the love of God and our fellow man. So that we can learn, truly learn, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, selflessness. So that we can truly become human – truly love.

May God grant us wisdom!

The Left Hand

2009-02-10T08:32:00.003-06:00

Dearly beloved,

It is productive to review our lives and recall some of the sins we have committed, for which we have the greatest shame and regret. When we have accumulated five such instances, we should take them and "attach" them, in our memory, one to each of the fingers of our left hand, beginning with the thumb and working toward the little finger. Our goal should be that we can readily list these five sins in our mind, holding out first our thumb and recalling that sin, then our index finger recalling the next sin, and so on.

Having done this, our own left hand (i.e. our own sins) becomes for us a powerful weapon against the adversary, especially against the father pride and its sons anger and judgmentalism. Immediately, when signs of these sins arise, we respond by holding out our thumb and then our fingers, bringing to life that line from the prayer of St. Ephraim The Syrian, "Lord, grant me to see my own sins, and not to judge my brother."

My own experience in this exercise is that I seldom make it past my index finger before I deeply regret the thoughts that had entered my mind, and am reduced to the prayer of the Publican, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Of course, if we find in our recollections sins which we have not sincerely confessed to our spiritual father we should make haste to do so.

Also, this practice should not be done if it leads to despondency, for that would simply be trading one sin for another equally as damaging.

May God grant us Wisdom!

Spiritual Journal

2009-01-24T09:51:00.001-06:00

Dearly beloved,

It is a good thing to keep a spiritual journal, writing into it passages from the scriptures and the holy fathers which have been particularly helpful at that point in time, along with one's own comments upon their meaning. The one reviews the journal from time to time, recalling these spiritual milestones rather than losing them to forgetfulness.

May God grant us wisdom!

Reasons to Love God

2008-12-21T20:55:00.005-06:00

Dearly Beloved,

Everything is really about love. Love is the power which created the universe, and the power which sustains it. Spiritual Life has at its core growing in love for God and mankind. For this reason, it is valuable to meditate on God and why we should love Him. Here are ten reasons for us to enter into this great Love:

10. Because, although God need not have created at all, and indeed endured all kinds of grief and sorrow on the account of His creation, yet He fashioned for us this universe of such beauty and wonder that even our greatest efforts suffice only to scratch the surface of understanding and appreciating it; And, moreover, He gave us dominion over all this creation.

9. Because, although He is beyond question worthy of the greatest of honor, worship, and adoration from us, yet He set aside all of this and counted it as nothing to be prized and held on too, instead humbling Himself to our nature and form, and indeed to dwell in the stable and the manger and the Virgin’s womb, all so that He might be with us.

8. Because, while we who are nothing yet become angry at the slightest hint of disrespect, He voluntarily endured mocking, ridicule, willful misunderstanding, and prejudice of every kind, without once wavering or turning back – all for our sakes.

7. Because God, Who by every right should be angry with us for our sins, is instead full of clemency and forgiveness, desiring nothing except our salvation, and is quick to forgive us if we only ask.

6. Because, while we might go out of our way to help a friend or one who has helped us (although we often are not willing to do even this), yet although we were sinners, He gave His life in order that we might receive through this the opportunity to live and be free of sin.

5. Because, when we were down and out, covered with the mire of sin, He yet saw our beauty and comeliness, and chose us as His own Holy people, never for a single moment turning away from us or despairing of us – and not sparing any effort, even giving us His own Holy Body and Precious Blood as our food, that we might be raised up and cleansed, attaining unto that humility, meekness, and purity which are our birthright and our destiny.

4. Because, although He was our Creator and Lord, He of His own free will adopted us as His children, joining us to the Body of His Son, raising us up to an honor higher than that of any created being, higher even than the angels, that we might call Him abba, Father.

3. Because to love God is the only possible response to God’s love for us; His love naturally attracts our love; Because the greatest joy and honor of mankind is that God seeks our friendship.

2. Because to love God kindles a spark, a flame, a joy in our hearts; It is the sweetest, most beautiful, unalloyed joy which is possible for a human being to experience.

1. Because, at the moment that we love God, we become like Him as much as it is ever possible for a creature to become like the Divine Creator, His love for us and our love for Him bridge the “unbridgeable” gap between us, and the ultimate purpose of our creation – indeed of all creation – is achieved.

May God grant us Wisdom!

Roadblocks to Spiritual Progress

2008-12-20T10:31:00.002-06:00

Dearly Beloved,

Here is a list of ten common justifications for not travelling the path of spiritual growth:

1. I am a Christian. This is pure self deceit, ascribing to ourselves the status and the promise of Christianity without entering into and living the life of the Christian. We cannot simply say that we are a mountain climber. We must first train and learn the skills required, and we must then climb mountains – only then can we truly call ourselves mountain climbers. Likewise, we must learn our Holy Orthodox faith and profess it, practice its moral and spiritual teachings, and participate in its services and sacraments – if we are to call ourselves Christians.

2. I am not the worst. This is another delusion, common among children. It may well be that others, even other members of our own parish, do not practice their faith as well as we do. But God does not ask us to be better than someone else; He asks us to seek Him with love, sincerity, and truth, and to do the best that we can. Moreover, claiming that others are worse is judgmentalism, the sin of the Pharisee.

3. I am doing enough. This attitude is invariably fatal to Christian growth, because it presumes that no further growth is necessary. But Christians are called to a life of growth; growth that continues forever, even in heaven itself. But to stop our spiritual journey is to fall back, to fall away from God. We cannot “tread water” spiritually.

4. I am a good person. It is amazing how many people say this, one wonders how many more believe it but do not say it. But Christ said, “none is good save one, that is God”. Do we not remember the story of the Publican and the Pharisee? If we do not see any sins in ourselves, that is not because we have no sins. If we do not see areas where we need to grow spiritually, that is not because we don’t need to grow spiritually. These things simply point to a failure in our spiritual vision, our spiritual understanding of ourselves. The Fathers had a word for this – prelest – spiritual presumption.

5. I can pray at home. Christ called His disciples to worship together. As His Passion approached, in the moment of His greatest anguish, He Himself asked His own disciples to pray with Him to watch with Him. He promised that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” We worship together, we grow together, we seek God together, we are saved together.” We together are the body of Christ.

6. God couldn’t want me. Sadly, this is a statement I hear, directly and indirectly, much more often than you might imagine. But this is the work of the devil. Let there be no doubt: God loves us God died for us. God knows every little thing about us, good and bad, small and large. God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves, and He loves us more than we will ever be able to comprehend. Let's love Him back.

7. The Church is old fashioned. I heard this one just this last week. “We are more advanced now”. Those were the exact words. We’re more advanced? Than who? St. John Chrysostom? St. Gregory of Nyssa? St. Maximus the Confessor? Or maybe we are more advanced than Jesus Christ? What a line! Spats are old fashioned. Bustles and corsets, punch cards, and bed warmers are old fashioned. The Church is eternal. The Church speaks to every generation – it speaks to us. If we will listen.

8. Ill do it later. When I have more time. When I get out of school. When I have the business going. When the kids are through school. When I retire. It’s called procrastination, and it is the enemy of every good thing we ever want to do. It is the enemy of Christian faith.

9. That’s for the priest. Or the bishop, or for the monastics, or for those “zealots”. There is no double standard in the Orthodox Church. There is not one standard for clergy and monastics and another for laity. There is not one for people who work and another for those who don’t. We are all called to growth, to maturity, to full sacramental life, to prayer, to spiritual understanding.

10. I’ll do what I want to do. We have no better friend than our spiritual father. Our spiritual father can give us advice and counsel, suggestions and insights on spiritual life and growth. He can be our spiritual coach, our spiritual personal trainer. When we keep him posted on our spiritual progress, through regular conversations and Confession, he can help us stay committed, and help us be honest with ourselves. He can point out things we can improve on, and when we are biting off a bit too much.

May God grant us Wisdom!

Into the Presence of God

2008-12-19T20:34:00.003-06:00

Dearly Beloved,

Before we begin to pray, we should take a moment to bring ourselves into the Presence of God, so that our prayers will come from our hearts, not simply from our lips. This is a mental and spiritual journey, which can take many forms; Here is an example.

Imagine for a moment the world in the darkness of sin. God watches lovingly though sadly over all. He yearns to pour out His grace, compassion, and forgiveness upon all mankind. He knows however, that in our sin we could not look upon His face and live. His holiness would be a terrible judgment upon us, who are anything but holy. Yet, there is no hope for us apart from Him.

Slowly, deliberately, He prepares us. He gives us the law to restrain us from greater evil. He appoints angels as guardians. He sends the prophets to gradually reveal to us what is to come. He gives us the good example of those in each generation who were pleasing to him.

Then, when all is ready, when all is fulfilled, He takes off His glory and majesty, He leaves His throne, and pours Himself out completely into a tiny child. He will not cast us away. In His infinite love for us He will come to us, teach us, be with us, die for us.

We are standing on the road outside of Bethlehem when some shepherds tell us of a strange and wondrous choir of angels, beautiful beyond our imagination, glorifying the Savior who has been born in this town.

We accompany the shepherds. With them we enter the cave. There, in a Light which seems to have no source, in a manger, lies the Child. He looks towards us, with eyes that are innocent and meek, wise - and infinitely, transcendently loving.

We are filled with many emotions: Joy, a sense that everything last led to this moment, awe at the sight of purity and holiness, sorrow for our sins, happiness at our redemption, unquestionable hope. We realize that God and man have become one, and our mind struggles to grasp the reality that we also are called to this unity; we are called to receive the Divine Flesh and Blood, to become the Body of Christ, brothers and sisters of the Son, children of the Father, bearers of the Holy Spirit.

Nothing else is important. Grudges and animosities fade away. All men are our brothers. We had in common with all mankind the love of the child. This is the place we want to be.

Our heart and soul is in Bethlehem, in the cave. With our bodies we step before our icons and the word pour out from our heart. Glory to Thee our God! Glory to Thee! O heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, come and abide in us and cleanse us...

We are not fantasizing; We do not seek a vision. We are spending a few moments thinking about God and His love before we begin our prayers. We are bringing ourselves into the presence of God. There are many such meditations. We will find, if we do this consistently, before our prayers at home, before the Vespers and the Divine Liturgy - that gradually these thoughts and feelings, this presence of God, will come to us more often and more readily. It will begin to come almost on its own, simply by stepping before our icons, or quietly entering into the Church.

May God grant us Wisdom!

Frequency of Confession

2008-12-18T20:36:00.003-06:00

Dearly Beloved,

This must be said: Frequent and sincere Sacramental Confession is essential to our spiritual life and growth. With the exception of those who enter the heavenly kingdom as infants, there is no salvation without Confession. For this reason, the development of a strong and productive Confessional life must be of primary concern when we embark on the spiritual life. There is, of course, much to be said about the practice of Confession; Here we speak only of the appropriate frequency of Confession. Moreover, many different practices regarding Confession have existed during the life of the Church. This suggestion is not meant as a judgment on those pieties.

If we wish to become strong, we must exercise regularly. If we wish to master a musical instrument, or an area of study, we must study regularly. Regular practice and study is essential to any serious endeavor. Since this is the case, it is hardly surprising that, if we truly desire to enter into a life of spiritual growth - and we are able to attend Divine Liturgy and approach the Holy Chalice regularly - we should begin by making sincere and thoughtful Confessions once a month, and as soon as possible when we become aware of any serious sin. If we are able to attend Divine Liturgy and receive the Holy Eucharist only periodically, we should confess before each time we approach the Chalice.

Let us make both habit and the calendar our friends in this regard. We should pick a weekend, say the first or second weekend of the month, and plan to make our Confession that weekend, at such time as our Confessor indicates. Then, if for some reason we cannot go on that weekend, we simply will go the following weekend, returning to our planned weekend the following month.

It may be that our priest is not able to hear our Confession with this regularity - some parishes are quite large and this is not possible. In that case we should discuss the matter with our priest, asking if perhaps there is another priest in the area who might be able to hear our Confession.

At first it will be hard for us to make good and sincere Confessions. We will have to force ourselves (see Matthew 11:12). Others may try to discourage us. Gradually, God will give grace, and we will realize that Confession is a wonderful, wonderful gift of God.

Clergy should encourage frequent Confession, carefully instructing both new converts and all the faithful. Periodic discussion of how to prepare for Confession is helpful in making penitents feel more comfortable revealing their sins. Also, clergy should carefully build their own skill as Confessors. A starting point in this regard is Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky's book Confession: A series of lectures on the Mysery of Repentance. There are many other good sources on this topic.

May God grant us Wisdom!

Taste and See

2008-12-17T07:51:00.003-06:00

Dearly beloved,

It is not uncommon, when we first embark on the spiritual life, that God in His compassion grants us a sense of His Love and His Presence, a spiritual warmth and joy. If this happens, let us thank Him with tears and rejoicing, staying firm in our efforts. However, it is important for us to understand that this feeling will not last. Invariably it will fade away within a short period of time, if it is not knocked away quickly by some tribulation in our lives, as sometime happens.

There are two reasons for this. First, this spiritual warmth was a free gift of God, a gift which we can do nothing to earn and which, as mere beginners on the spiritual path, we have done nothing to prepare ourselves for. God grants us, as it were, a taste of Himself (cf Ps 34:8), so that we might have at least an inkling of His Love and compassion, an inkling of what we are striving for, to serve as motivation for our journey. If this spiritual warmth were to continue, we would not struggle against sin and selfishness; We would make no spiritual progress.

The only time we make real spiritual progress is when we struggle for that progress, when we struggle to turn away from sin and autocentrism. The weightlifter increases the weights, the runner runs up hills. The mother puts her child down and backs up a bit, encouraging him to come to her rather than reaching out to pick him up - encouraging him to learn to walk.

With God it is the same. When He is near we pray, but our prayer does not yet have strength. It becomes strong when we continue to pray even though He has made Himself more 'absent'. Our virtue becomes firm when its practice is not rewarded by the praise of others, and even firmer when it is not appreciated or derided. Provided that we persevere.

We understand that our spiritual life will proceed in cycles. There will be times of spiritual warmth and peace, and there will be times of spiritual aridity, when God seems absent and we feel like we are climbing a spiritual sand dune. Even Christ Himself experienced a sense of the Father's absence on the Cross. (ref Matt 27:46).

When spiritual warmth comes, we should rejoice in it and give thanks to God. When it departs, we should understand that this is both inevitable and beneficial, that it is time for our next period of struggle and growth. Let us continue our labors, not slacking off or letting our prayer become dry, confident that God will raise us up again when His Wisdom dictates. Our goal should be that the times of spiritual aridity will gradually become shorter, the descents from spiritual warmth slower and the returns quicker and sooner. When God wills, the cycle will be overcome.

May God grant us Wisdom!

Contrition

2008-12-16T18:51:00.005-06:00

Dearly beloved,

Our Lord Jesus Christ would have us be sorry for our sins, but not too sorry, not inappropriately sorry. Contrition is an appropriate moderate sorrow for sin, between two extremes, between too little sorrow and too much.

We have too little sorrow if we are indifferent to our sins, unaware of our sins, or believe that we are not sinners. Let us not sadden our loving God and the priest by entering the Confessional saying that we "haven't really done anything wrong", that we have committed only "the usual sins", or only "little sins". When Christ said, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Luke 5:32) He did not mean that He was only interested in sinners, or that the righteous did not need His grace to inherit eternal life - He said this because there are no righteous to call - we are all sinners, in need of repentance and forgiveness. To say that we have no sin is simply to make clear that we have not even started on the spiritual path, whose first big step is sincere repentance for our sins. We are still possessed by pride, judgmentalism, and prelest (the sin of spiritual presumption, daring to approach God on the basis of righteousness, like the Pharisee).

We have too much sorrow for our sins if we believe that we are "no good", that "God does not want us", or that "there is no hope". This is blasphemy, in that it denies either God's power to save us or His love and desire to save us - or both. It is the sin of despondency. It is often caused by parents who 'type' their children when they do wrong, e.g. "You are a liar" instead of "You told a lie" or "You are lazy" instead of "You didn't clean your room." Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. Every human being is loved by God, who desires that all mankind be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. A single human soul is of infinitely more value than all the material wealth that has ever been known.

The proper amount of sorrow for our sins is this: That when we sin, we acknowledge freely that we have sinned, and that the responsibility for the sin is our own. That we Confess the sin and ask forgiveness of God and whoever we have wronged. We pray to God for the strength to overcome the sin, and we struggle earnestly to overcome it. But not that we think we are somehow bad, dirty, or evil because we have sinned - We have simply sinned. We need only to put the sin from us, and with God's help we can do that if we continue to struggle, and keep getting up when we fall.

The two extremes, indifference to our sin or prelest, and despondency, are both more common than one might think. And although they are quite different in their essence, they have two very important things in common. First, they are most often strongly set positions in the mind and heart of the person, not easy to overcome. Second, they both often have the result that the person does not come to Confession, or that they make inadequate, even trivial confessions.

It is important for the Confessor to discern these conditions, which are very different but have similar symptoms, because they respond to different medicines. Those suffering from despondency need to be comforted, reminded of their great value in the eyes of God and the Church, reminded of Christ's love for them. Truly, if there was only one human being on earth, Christ would still have come.

On the other hand, those who are indifferent to their sins or think they are good must have their consciences resuscitated. They must be brought to the knowledge that they are sinners, as this is the first step on the path to knowledge of the truth. This, however, must be done very carefully, for pride often lies at the root of these feelings, even in a seemingly gentle person, and pride pricked leads quickly to anger. It is better to approach this issue indirectly, in sermons or bulletin articles of a general nature, even as Christ used parables to teach. We must pray for God's wisdom in these matters, as our own is surely lacking.

On our part as those desiring spiritual life, we should make the effort to find contrition on our own, not placing the burden only on our Confessor. We should take the critical eye that we formerly used to judge our neighbor and turn it on ourselves. We should judge as fairly as we can, looking for the signs of both prelest and despair, which can exist in us at the same time. Rather than relying on our own opinion, we should relate what we see to our spiritual father and ask his guidance. We should pray that God would let us see our own sins a little at a time, and we should encourage our Confessor to question us frankly.

Clergy providing spiritual guidance to those new to spiritual life should take care to explain the cycles of spiritual warmth and spiritual aridity to those under their guidance, explaining to them that the experience of God's becoming more distant is both necesarry and beneficial to their spiritual growth. If this is not done, Christians as yet inexperienced in spiritual life often misinterpret what is happening and, thinking that they have irretrievable lost the sense of the presence of God, fall away from the Church. Worse, in attempting to recover their sense of spiritual warmth, they may also undertake pseudo-charismatic practices.

May God grant us Wisdom!