From the Book: "I Know A Man In Christ" Elder Sophrony The Hesychast and Theologian
by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
In the file
that I [Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos] had made up from my visits
to the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, my meetings with
Elder Sophrony and the various words of his that I have set out above, I
also found a separate collection of the Elder’s sayings, which did not
form part of the discussions that I had with him on particular dates.
These are
words that the Elder addressed to me from time to time, or that I heard
him saying to others, or that some of the monks and nuns (Father Kyrill,
Father Raphael, Father Zacharias, Sister Magdalen) mentioned to me as
the Elder’s words. They really did express the ‘spirit’ of the Elder.
Most of these sayings were passed on to me by Father Zacharias, with
whom I had a strong fraternal friendship which I still maintain.
Sometimes we had long discussions. It was he who passed on to me various
orders, requests and wishes from the Elder, as he was continuously with
him. At various times Father Zacharias would say during our
conversations: “The Elder says on that subject…” I recorded these words
in a special notebook. In any case, the Elder once told me: “Zacharias
has taken all my teaching”, and I was convinced that he was reporting
the Elder’s words accurately.
I set out
these words to round off this second part of the book, and also so that
we can look at Father Sophrony’s oral teaching.
The aim of
marriage is for the couple to collaborate with God, so that they will
give birth to sons and daughters of God. Prayer is needed when choosing.
In order for them to make a good choice, much prayer is needed that the
suitable person may be given for this purpose.
When someone
marries, he does so in order that his wife may be his helper for
salvation. He must show love, and they must struggle for their
salvation.
Today it is a
privilege not to have children. Parents suffer martyrdom. When the
children grow up, society takes them. Parents idolise their children.
They live their whole lives in them and identify with them. This is a
mistake. Through marriage the husband takes the wife as a helper, so
that they may achieve perfection [theosis].
Children are gifts from God. Often the children bring anxiety and the
nous is distracted from God. Nature itself (God’s creative, life-giving
and providential energy) will bring it about that there are not many
children; it will grow weak and it will not be possible for many
children to be born. When people marry and God gives children, they
should glorify God. If God does not give children, they should be calm
and not worry.
It is not a
matter of giving birth to beings for historical reality, but of giving
birth to persons for the reality that transcends history, that they may
enter Paradise. Many give birth to children who become fodder for hell.
Married
couples must learn self-emptying. They must give way to one another.
Then they learn to accept another existence in their own existence.
The
upbringing of children begins from the day of the wedding. The couple
ought to live with prayer and the fear of God. When a mother prays when
she is pregnant, the embryo feels the energy of the prayer. When a child
is conceived the parents ought not to be angry. When it is born, they
ought to pray; they should also pray when they have the child in their
arms. Whatever the mother does, she should do it with prayer. She should
make the sign of the cross over the child when it is asleep, and pray
when she breastfeeds it or gives it food.
The fact
that many children nowadays have unkind instincts is because they were
not breastfed by their mothers. (When a woman asked whether she should
feed her baby with her own milk or with cows’ milk, I replied: “Who gave
birth to it – you or the cow?”)
The aim is
not simply that the infant should partake of the Most Pure Mysteries,
but that it should live in an atmosphere of prayer at home. The
atmosphere of the home should be one of prayer. The parents ought to
inspire the children with their love for Christ and the All-Holy Virgin.
When the
children are small, there ought to be rules at home, which should
gradually give way as the children grow up. Then they are given freedom.
We should also give them presents. The children may feel that they live
in a rather old-fashioned way when they live life in the Church. The
important thing, however, is for the children not to become atheists.
Atheism is worse even than carnal sin.
The aim in
bringing up children is that they may acquire personal love for Christ
and the All-Holy Virgin. We ought not to advise them simply to become
good people. Also, we have to help them to stay in the Orthodox Church,
not merely to avoid sin. The fact that they stay within Orthodoxy is a
great thing, and may be the cause of salvation, even if they have made
some mistakes in their lives. Children ought to be inspired by love for
Christ and the All-Holy Virgin.
Constructive
leisure activities are essential for those who live in the world. It is
preferable for children to get out of the house rather than to stay at
home and watch television.
If we want
our children to live in modern cities in the same way as we lived in the
past, we will drive them mad. There are children who seem all right
when they are small, but when they grown up they lose their reason.
It is
preferable for children not to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ
rather than to partake under compulsion from their parents, without
wanting to themselves. If the mother prays during the child’s
conception, pregnancy and birth, she gives it spiritual birth as well as
physical birth – she gives birth to a spiritual being. There were many
atheists in Russia, but the worst atheists were the children of priests.
We must make sure that we bring up children in such a way that they do
not regard Orthodoxy as difficult and burdensome.
Parents
ought not to neglect their children much on account of services and
sermons. Also, many Greek parents in England do not allow their children
to go round with English children. This is a bad thing. The child has
to learn how to live in a community with different people.
The general
view on bringing up children is as follows: care is needed prior to
marriage. The choice of a suitable spouse must be made with prayer. The
couple ought to begin their life with zeal, and with prayer that God
might enlighten the children that will be born so that they become His
own children. As they bring up their children they ought, with
discretion, to give them freedom and allow them to go on their way. We
should not use the word ‘forbid’, even as regards leisure activities.
How they behave in secondary matters is less important than whether they
love Christ. So that they may love Christ, we ought not to talk to them
psychologically and theologically in stilted language, but to pray
inwardly in our heart. When the parents have God’s grace within them,
the children sense it.
There should
be open discussions within the home. Also, the atmosphere of prayer
ought to prevail, not just an atmosphere of words. We should form our
children. And formation, according to the Church, means giving form –
the form of Christ.
It is good
for children to have contact and meetings with lots of young people.
Because in this way they will realise that relations with the opposite
sex are not confined to the carnal level, as happens in marriage.
In the past
matchmaking was prevalent. Now personal acquaintance predominates. It is
not so important what happens, but whatever happens must be done with
prayer.
Freedom does
not mean “Do what you like”, but “Do what you like within limits”. In
other words, we discuss with the children; we do not express surprise
and amazement at every bad thing they do. And in some secondary matters
we leave them to do as they like. If a child wants to go to a party, we
should tell him or her: “Pray, and do whatever God enlightens you to
do.” And we should add: “I shall not hold it against you if you go to
the party after praying.” In this way we develop their sense of
responsibility and their relationship with Christ. We teach them to pray
to God about everything they do.
Freedom plays a major role in bringing up children.
We should
pray God to give inspiration. God enlightens everyone, especially
mothers, and gives them inspiration. This is the only way we can bring
up children.
Some people
speak about ‘marital priesthood’ and assert that in married life one
lives the threefold dignity of the Lord. This is speculative theology.
The threefold dignity of the Lord (Prophet, King and High Priest) is
lived through repentance. Otherwise all those things that are said are a
theology of the passions.
In the Old
Testament God made known His will negatively through the law, through
‘not’ and ‘no’ – “Thou shalt not kill” and so on. The people were
tormented and lost hope because they could not put it into practice, and
they cried out: “Come, Thou Messiah, and save us.” In this way the law
became “a tutor to bring us to Christ”.
In the Old
Testament childlessness was considered a curse because all women wanted
to become mothers and grandmothers of Christ, the Messiah. In the New
Testament things have changed, because now we live the Messiah, Christ.
God did not
create masters and slaves but sons in relation to a Father. All those
who become sons of God by grace afterwards also become spiritual fathers
of Christians.
God
glorified the All-Holy Virgin and kept her in silence. The mystery of
the Theotokos is a mystery of silence. For that reason God did not
enlighten people to talk about her natural life. However, the Church
glorified her.
A saint’s word opens the hearer’s nous, and with this word he can preach a whole sermon.
God’s revelation is not visions, but the advent of divine grace, which comes in stages.
Christ said
something once and this word remains for ever. We realise this from the
saints as well. They heard a word once and they kept it for the whole of
their lives. In this way we also comprehend the energy of God’s word.
For someone
to do missionary work in an Orthodox way, he has to have the Holy Spirit
within him, but he must also assimilate the culture of the place where
he is. Then he can make a contribution.
No one can
bear to live with a saint, because the saint’s word is fiery. The saint
ascends the Cross with his whole life; he is crucified. And the one who
lives with him cannot bear this life of the Cross.
There are no
writings by female saints. This is not because there are fewer holy
women than men. There are more holy women, but female saints lead a
hidden life; they are able to keep their life secret. The All-Holy
Virgin received great grace from God. We do not have revelations that
come from the All-Holy Virgin, but we know that she had great grace; the
Church and all who pray to her are aware of it.
Also, women
did not need to reveal their experiences in order to guide their flock.
All those who have left us a few of their words were Abbesses. But male
saints, too, would have kept silent, and we would not have their
writings, had it not been necessary for them, as people with
responsibility and shepherds of the Church, to guide their flocks.
God’s covenant with human beings is His call to each one. Accepting the call is keeping the Covenant.
Priests
share in Christ’s martyric priesthood. The Pope exercises his authority
from a high position. Orthodox priests share in Christ’s self-emptying,
in the martyric priesthood of Christ, Who was crucified and went down to
Hades.
The trials
that the saints underwent are greater than our own trials, because their
hearts were sensitive and everything in their lives took on larger
proportions. Christ’s Cross transcends any human martyrdom because
Christ was sinless. We inherit death and we strengthen the power of
death throughout our lives with our sins.
Christians will always be misunderstood by those around them.
We should
also respect the freedom of non-believers and atheists, and not judge
them. Then they too will leave us free to do our work.
In Greece
they are prone to gossip and easily take offence, but at the same time
they have intuition, and they understand that other people have good
intentions and mean well. This is because Greece is an Orthodox country.
When someone
has a rule from his spiritual father not to take Holy Communion, but he
takes Holy Communion because he thirsts for it, then, apart from being
disobedient, he does harm to his soul, because afterwards he stops
thirsting for Holy Communion. If, however, he obeys his spiritual
father, he will continue to thirst for Holy Communion. This thirst is
beneficial. Just by keeping the word of one’s spiritual father one
receives grace from God.
When someone
has passed through Buddhism he needs to repent and weep a lot.
Otherwise a certain pride will remain in him as a residue from his
previous life. Carnal sins (fornication) are forgotten through
repentance and are easily cured. Psychological and spiritual sins
(pride, heresies, experimenting with Buddhism) are not easily cured. It
is the same with culture. A monk who spends his time on cultural
pursuits shows that he has no experience of repentance. If he had
repentance, all his past interests, including culture, would be left
behind, since the grace of God would be before him.
What do the
words “Keep your mind in hell, and despair not” mean? They mean nothing
to us, but Staretz Silouan understood them as a great consolation,
because he was going through the period of Godfor-sakenness. That is why
he said: “I received the weapon of my salvation.” It was like a
triumph. Hell means the withdrawal of God’s grace. This is God’s
chastening. For Staretz Silouan the way out was “Do not despair.”
God
abandoned the Apostle Peter during the time of trial in order to prepare
him for greater grace. He received so much grace from God that even his
shadow cured people.
The grace of
God that comes to the saints is so great that the soul is unable to
keep it. For that reason they leave the world and the monastery. This
happened to St Seraphim of Sarov.
When someone
who is married does not honour spiritual virginity (purity of heart)
and does not exercise it, he does not live well even as a married man,
because married life is nourished by this purity of heart.
Godly despair is different from worldly despair. Godly despair is linked with profound repentance, abandonment by God.
The
difference between something psychological and something spiritual is
the difference between what is human and what is divine. Everything in
the spiritual life is the fruit of human collaboration and divine grace.
God arranges
sufferings and trials for the proud man so that he might be saved. To
someone who is physically strong He gives an illness to stop him
indulging himself. Afflictions crush the heart, and this crushing
produces prayer.
Man is a microcosm. He repents, he becomes holy, he receives the whole world, and thus a small creation takes place.
We are all
murderers to varying degrees. When we are emotionally in favour of a
state that fights against another state, we too participate spiritually
in the killings that take place.
Practising
virginity requires obedience. A monk is not protected from various
temptations when he lives with his mother and sister, but when he has
the blessing of his Elder and is obedient to him.
The essence
of obedience is that someone opens his heart – his hypostasis – and
accepts the will of another hypostasis. This enables him to acquire
knowledge of all created being. When someone is completely obedient to
his Elder, his heart opens up and he inherits the Elder’s ‘riches’ in a
very short time. This is not something psychological, but something that
comes about in the Spirit. This means that, if the disciple receives a
grace from God during prayer, his mind immediately turns to his Elder
and he says that this happened by the prayers of the Elder. This is
spiritual obedience and love for the Elder. Through this process,
obedience to the Elder deadens the passions. This is the only way to
deaden and transform the passions.
Often impertinence becomes a burning fire. Simplicity, not impertinence, is needed.
The Apostle Paul expounds the charisma of love in his Epistle to the Romans better than in the Epistle to the Corinthians.
The prayer
“Against Thee only do we sin, and Thee alone do we worship” has great
theological significance. We worship God, but we are also unable to live
with Him. He is a mirror that reveals our ugliness. Thus man grows
spiritually both downwards and upwards.
Prayer ought
to take place in the dogmatic framework of ecclesiology and the
Gospel. Otherwise prayer cannot act. And even if it acts, at the time of
temptation it departs and is lost. We must be familiar with the whole
of God’s training.
There are
many degrees of humility. The first is the recognition of sinfulness.
Secondly, man compares himself with the perfect law and sees that he is
worse than everyone else. Thirdly, he accepts charismas as gifts from
God. Fourthly, he sees the humility of Christ.
Keeping
Christ’s commandments is for all Christians. The monastic life is a
technical method to help us keep Christ’s commandments better. So we do
not preach monasticism but Christianity.
I do not
like talking about intuition, but about the heart’s awareness and inner
conviction, which is the working of divine grace.
We should
not oppose the evil one with words, because opposition increases evil.
As Abba Dorotheos says, the good swimmer passes under the wave.
Someone
ought not to humble himself before those who do not humble themselves,
because they will perceive it as weakness and will go on to strangle
him. When those who are born again in the Spirit meet someone humble,
they humble themselves even more, whereas those who are not born again,
when they meet someone humble, take the opportunity to impose themselves
on him.
Five minutes of prayer when the whole body is in pain are more precious than a whole night of praying with bodily ease.
It is
preferable to do only a little spiritual work, but with peace in our
heart, rather than to attempt a lot and lose our peace of heart.
We should
prefer to have a little of all the virtues rather than one virtue to
perfection, because in this way one’s nous, will and desire are
purified. The soul acts in the whole body, so man needs to be wholly
cleansed.
We should
not only talk about prayer; we should also know how to keep ourselves
from hopelessness. Usually people fall as a result of pride or despair.
These two are man’s greatest enemies.
Each one has
a particular way of life that is unlike any other. All, however, lead
to God and end with Him, just as the spokes of a wheel are connected
with the hub.
Even in
spiritual drought God sends us consolation, as He knows our weaknesses.
It would be to our advantage to live our whole life in spiritual dryness
but to struggle. In other words, if we could reach Christ through being
utterly abandoned by God, through emptying ourselves completely, as
happened with Christ on the Cross. Then man would also have great glory.
We shall have glory depending on how much we empty ourselves and how
much pain we endure.
Nothing,
either spiritual or material, belongs to us but to God. It becomes ours
when we offer it to God. Through the prayer that we say before the meal,
we offer up the material good things to God, and then they become ours,
because God gives them back to us so that we can live.
Freedom is not political independence, but that the evil one has no authority over us.
Not all the saints received the same grace from God, but all filled the vessel that they offered to God.
Sometimes
reading patristic writings makes the spiritual life difficult. For
instance: a certain Christian has a spiritual experience. If he reads a
patristic book he begins spying on himself, trying to fit himself into
the corresponding categories of the spiritual life, according to what he
has read. Thus the left hand consumes and destroys whatever the right
hand does. Great simplicity is required in the spiritual life.
Illiterate old ladies whisper prayers to God and have faces like
children, whereas educated people speculate and their faces are troubled
and aggressive.
Sometimes it
is good that agitation arises between the brethren. Because, on the one
hand, they escape from despondency and, on the other, they become
humble.
Once someone
receives God’s grace the war, the battle, begins. He receives great
grace and his body must also be transformed. The carnal mentality draws
the soul downwards, but at the same time God’s grace draws it upwards.
This is a difficult moment. Someone can be led astray from the right or
from the left. The psychological pain is great, and it can strike him at
the weakest point of his body, his heart or his brain. Then obedience
to a discerning Elder is necessary. Our own will must disappear from
within us.
One
interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s words, “Let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16), is as follows: When we hear or read a
word of God, we feel it by grace to be food for our heart. This is
spiritual, not intellectual, remembrance of God.
Man’s formation and transformation means that he takes the form of Christ’s servant.
The passion
of worldly sorrow is a great passion that preoccupies people today.
Unfortunately we retain sorrow within us and we caress it until it kills
us. One must fight against the passion of sorrow and cure it.
One should
not listen to one’s own thoughts, because the devil and the satanic
spirit work through thoughts. If someone heeds his own thoughts in
trivial matters, the devil will gradually gain power, strength and
domination over him. Then he will cast him into major delusions. If the
devil tells him to do something and he obeys, later on he will even tell
the man to commit suicide and he will obey him.
A Roman
Catholic asked me why we Orthodox repeat the Jesus Prayer so often. I
told him: “We repeat it because we are slow on the uptake and do not
understand. When, however, we understand something, we never leave it.”
The angels sinned in eternity, whereas human beings sin in time.
Western
Christians force themselves to pray, and this creates pressure in the
brain. The Orthodox pray with ease, because this prayer takes place with
the grace that exists abundantly in the Orthodox Church.
Long
services usually make inner prayer difficult. After a long vigil service
Staretz Silouan said, “We killed the donkey (the body) but we didn’t do
anything.” Fasting helps spiritual progress less than prayer,
particularly inner prayer accompanied by mourning. Fasting a lot without
discretion sometimes creates problems in prayer.
It is easier
for people to keep burning charcoal in their hands than grace in their
hearts. They perceive divine grace as a consuming fire. What is needed
is humility and self-accusation, and for them not to receive divine
grace in a festive manner.
People in
the West are unaware of the mystery of divine abandonment, of God’s
chastening, which is why they fall into despondency. This mystery of
divine abandonment and self-emptying is repeated again and again in the
life of Orthodox monks, but they know what this mystery is and how to
deal with it. Self-emptying leads to glory, if one is able to endure.
God’s
commandments are the manner of divine life. Man cannot keep the
commandments of God to the full, so he needs grace. Prayer accomplishes
this. Sometimes, when someone keeps God’s commandments and lives the
ethos of the crucified Christ, he senses God’s grace without praying, or
he prays out of love. The aim is not to pray without ceasing (when it
is done mechanically and formally); the aim is our communion with God,
which is also achieved through prayer.
The Fathers
did not ask for many words. They received one spiritual word, left for
the desert, and lived for many years with that word. They attempted to
put it into practice and they were nourished by it. We say, and we want
to hear, lots of words, but we do nothing to put them into practice.
When someone talks a lot, he becomes spiritually weak.
Simple
people are moved by the slightest thing, and this gives them energy.
However, they may also complain and grumble about the slightest thing,
and this exhausts them.
Someone who has obedience and love can adapt himself to any situation.
Many people have unassailable ignorance.
As a layman I
was very sensitive. Someone was contemptuous of Holy Scripture and
thumped his hand on the table. I was in pain for two weeks. Afterwards,
however, I stopped being sensitive, because this energy too was
transformed.
People in
the West live with their brain: their lives are centered on reason. So,
if scientists were to invent a machine, they would be able to read
people’s thoughts and direct them. All those, however, who live with
their heart, within which God’s grace acts, and who pray in their heart,
have the sign of the Cross in their heart and no one is able to control
them spiritually. They have freedom of spirit.
In the cave
of the Holy Trinity (near the Monastery of St Paul) I prayed ardently
and wept aloud, because no one could hear me and I had freedom, whereas
in Karoulia it was difficult for me, because I had neighbours.
The twelfth
chapter of the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews describes the
spiritual fact of God’s chastening. Sometimes this chastening from God
comes about through the Jesus Prayer, sometimes through weeping, and at
other times through Godforsakenness. God trains man in many ways and
offers him more perfect knowledge to prevent him experiencing a fall, as
did Adam when he was first created. In this way his progress towards
God will be steadier.
The
following state occurs in those at the start of their spiritual life:
something they say or a sin they commit causes them great agitation. We
ought to be slightly contemptuous of these forgivable little everyday
falls, in order to make some other gains. It is better to be at a low
level and peaceful, rather than high up and anxious.
When the heart is on fire for the Jesus Prayer and for various reasons it cannot pray, it is like a dormant volcano.
When someone cannot rebut his thoughts, he should at least tell them to his Elder. Even then he will benefit.
When someone
reaches a certain spiritual state and has grace from God, he begins to
be taught by God. Then everything instructs him. God sent St Antony the
Great to the shoemaker to learn self-accusation, even though St Antony
had grace and was superior to the shoemaker, which is why we commemorate
St Antony and not the shoemaker. Also, someone who is spiritual is
taught by the whole of nature.
When someone
who has hidden, unconfessed sins hears a spiritual word, he feels pain
somewhere in his body. Divine grace also reveals his state to him in
this way, and if he wishes, he can escape from this spiritual
misfortune.
When someone
prays in a particular way and encounters various obstacles, and at some
point he is unable to pray in that way, if he has inspiration, another
path will open up. Another way will be found and he will acquire greater
knowledge of God.
When we
speak about asceticism in the Orthodox Church we do not simply mean
bodily ascetic practices, although these too are essential, but the
soul’s resurrection from the passions, love towards God and the
quickening of the soul by the Holy Spirit.
When Staretz Silouan died I felt like an orphan for one week. Afterwards I felt differently.
When someone
prays in his heart, he is sometimes given a word. This word begets
other words. Thus his nous is opened and he grasps the meaning of the
whole of Holy Scripture. Every word of revelation encompasses the entire
meaning of Holy Scripture.
When someone
begins to live according to Christ, the community rejects him. Then he
acquires another community, because we Christians also have our own
community. We lose nothing, even in this world.
My greatest
trial, when I became a monk, was that I had to abandon art, because I
thought that through art I would draw near to the eternal. The eternal,
however, is approached through prayer, the renunciation of the wealth of
the mind and, above all, through theoria of God.
The
experience gained by living and practising asceticism in a monastery
enables a monk to live in the desert as well. Otherwise he cannot put
the desert to good use. When someone departs for the desert and a
thought about something (hurting a brother) torments him, this thought
will give him no peace.
Spiritual
virginity even cures lost bodily virginity. Abba Zosimas, who had both
bodily and spiritual virginity, bowed down before St Mary of Egypt, who
was a prostitute from an early age. The spiritual virginity that St Mary
of Egypt acquired cured her completely.
Spiritual
virginity is of greater worth. Spiritual virginity means keeping
Christ’s commandments, when one’s nous cleaves to God through prayer.
Everyone, whether married or unmarried, can acquire this spiritual
virginity. Monks who do not have spiritual virginity are wretched,
because they neither have children on the natural level nor do they
transfer existence to Paradise.
If people have the idea of being saved and they manage it, how will we monks whose aim is to be saved not manage it?
For a
monastery to make progress it must have either an Elder or pilgrims.
Pilgrims help monks to reduce their passions, because the monks have to
offer them something, to show love and to sacrifice themselves. It is
very beneficial when every week one pilgrim is regenerated at the
monastery.
– The holy
Fathers make a distinction between mourning and weeping aloud. Mourning
means compunction. Sometimes the one who mourns breaks into loud sobs,
which are of a spiritual and charismatic, not psychological, nature.
This is weeping aloud. In this case the desert is necessary, so that no
one will hear him weeping. Then the monk is unable to stay in the monastery. Weeping aloud increases tears.
The parents of monks realise the benefit of their child’s dedication to God at the hour of their death.
No one ought
to ask for the priesthood, whereas one ought to ask for the monastic
schema, because monasticism is the search for repentance.
When I was a
monk at the Monastery of St Panteleimon, I did not want any thought of
ordination to the priesthood or diaconate to enter my mind. Nor did I
want to suggest that I be ordained. When the Abbot suggested ordination
to me, during the service, as they could not put the deacon’s stole on
me, I moved my arm to help them. Afterwards this troubled me a lot, in
case a desire [for ordination] had perhaps existed within me and had
expressed itself in this way. Priesthood brings many temptations. When
someone goes forward or begins on his own, he cannot overcome them.
Martyrdom in
the monastic life, and in the Christian life in general, consists in
how one will live through the successive stages of Christ’s life.
In order for
the monastery to function well it must have a discerning spiritual
father or a good typikon and good organisation, otherwise it will turn
into a gypsy camp.
Brianchaninov
complains in his autobiography about the severity with which his first
Elder treated him. In this way he sapped his strength for prayer. For
that reason the Elder ought to take care of his spiritual children in
every respect.
A monk said: “I am very sure about the things I say from the Elder’s words.”
We live as though we had nothing in our minds and when they ask us, we have something to say.
Sometimes one becomes spiritually weaker after a talk. This happens when one speaks many times a day with energy and intensity.
The holy
Fathers do not usually speak in detail about matters to do with marriage
and married couples. When someone lives in repentance, he finds the
solution to many problems. When someone has the fear of God, he is
enlightened to deal with more specific problems.
People will have to answer to God for the word they say to people which is beyond them.
We ought to speak when forced to do so. Then we too force God, Who cannot be forced, and He gives us a word of freedom.
We must respect other people’s freedom. Nothing done by force endures in time and eternity.
When a
spiritual father encounters a response from someone, he loves him,
because both of them benefit. Therefore it is not wrong for there to be a
special love in the Spirit and gratitude between spiritual father and
disciple.
When we
accept the spiritual father as a gift from God, or when gratitude and
thankfulness to God for the spiritual father arise in prayer, then we
love him in the Spirit.
When someone
wants to change his spiritual father, he must first seek his blessing,
and so leave in peace. He should never refer anywhere to complaints or
things that happened in the past. If he complains and mentions various
events, the devil acquires power over him, whereas otherwise the devil’s
fire goes into the air. In the French Revolution someone said: “Give me
a letter from someone and I will cut off his head”, in other words, he
would find a pretext to put him to death. For that reason, the best we
can do in such cases is keep silent.
Spiritual
fathers have a difficult task, because they must continually point out
their spiritual children’s mistakes. This stirs up a reaction and causes
hatred.
When we
speak about things that we do not know personally and that are beyond
us, we place a barrier (a wall) in front of us that prevents us from
experiencing them.
The death of
an innocent man imperceptibly changes the whole world for the better,
because the energy of the innocent man benefits the whole world and
cures injustice.
We ought not to make vows to God. However, if we make them, we must fulfil them.
St John of
Kronstadt was once invited to cure someone who was allegedly paralysed.
It was a trap, because they wanted to murder him. When St John realised
the deception he said: “Let it be, Lord, according to Thy word.” And the
allegedly paralysed man became actually paralysed. Subsequently St John
prayed and he became well. When someone pretends to be ill, God allows
him to become ill.
There is only a slight difference between geniuses and madmen.
By praying
for two weeks and studying patristic texts, intelligent people can write
a whole book about prayer and think that they can pray.
When someone
knows earthly pleasures through art, he feels disappointment and
bitterness. This is because one pursues art in order to grasp the
eternal, but this cannot be achieved through any human work. The soul
knows that eternity is not to be found there, so it feels pain.
When someone
receives a spiritual gift, he usually attracts other people’s envy.
Then he feels the need to hide it. So, without realising it, he becomes a
fool for Christ’s sake.
The subject
of foolishness for Christ’s sake is a very subtle one. Some have
undertaken this task to conceal the riches of their spiritual gifts, and
so as not to provoke people’s envy.
We must turn
psychological states into spiritual phenomena, into weeping. There is a
method which Christians ought to know. We are aware of a trial, of
contempt on the part of others or an unjust attack. Then our heart is
embittered by this injustice and produces various thoughts that affect
our whole life. Prayer stops at once.
The
therapeutic method is to leave aside the brother who has wronged us and
to begin a conversation with God. We say: “My God, it’s my fault. I am
unworthy to be loved by people…” Then repentance and weeping begin, and
this cures the negative psychological phenomenon and makes it spiritual.
We see this in the life of Christ. The Apostle Peter was preventing
Christ from going to the Cross, but Christ had steadfastly set His face
to go to Jerusalem, to Golgotha. His crucifiers were howling, but He had
His nous turned towards God’s will and was praying to His Father. He
did not engage in a dialogue with people but with God. In this way we
become healthy and are cured. This is a kind of ‘struggle’ with God.
The Philokalia does
not write much about the scientific method of prayer, but it writes a
lot about the atmosphere of prayer and about keeping Christ’s
commandments. Some Westerners only translate those parts of the Philokalia that write about the technical method of prayer, and so they present it as a sort of Christian yoga. This is a mistake.
Mindfulness
of death, as lived and described by the Fathers, is not an external
awareness that one day we shall die. Elderly people have this as well,
and they mention it often. Rather, it is a charismatic state; it is the
consciousness of inner deadness. Man sees that he is inwardly destitute
of God’s grace, and that he has passions. He knows that God is the God
of the living, but he is spiritually dead and has lost God. This is what
people experience in the West, which is why they say that God is dead.
God has not died, but man has died to God.
When, by
grace, man sees this inner deadness, he also sees deadness in the whole
of creation. He feels that everything is lifeless, dead. He sees death
everywhere. This causes profound suffering; he gives himself over to
weeping and seeks Life, the Living God, his resurrection.
This is a
charisma, a spiritual event that gives birth to prayer. When this gift
is absent, we use external things to give us a sense of death, such as
pictures of graves and bones, and so on.
Christianity
is so great that one refuses to believe it, as happened after Christ’s
Resurrection: “They worshipped Him; but some doubted”. They did not
doubt out of lack of love, nor out of disbelief, but out of a sense of
greatness. At the Second Coming of Christ the just will be amazed, but
the sinners will also be amazed; the former because they did not expect
to be saved, the latter because they did not expect to be condemned.
If
mindfulness of death purifies man, how much more does death itself –
that is to say, the coming of death, when it is accompanied by
repentance.
All our life long we go through the tribunal, the judgment.
The customs
houses about which the Fathers write are symbols of a reality. The
Fathers understand them as follows: after the fall of man, the soul is
nourished by the body, in other words, it finds refreshment in material
pleasures. After death, however, these bodily passions that used to
divert the soul no longer exist, because the soul has left the body, and
they choke and stifle the soul. These are the customs houses and hell.
Abba Dorotheos says that hell is for someone to be shut up for three
days in a room without food, sleep or prayer. Then he can understand
what hell is.
When someone acquires mindfulness of death, he understands how senseless it is to acquire and accumulate material possessions.
At the
Second Coming the just will say: “When, Lord, did we do this, when did
we do that?” They will not know what good they have done, because they
passed through all the dryness of this present life with patience and
faith. They put their trust in the words of Holy Scripture.
Paradise is
the grace of God and His Kingdom. God continuously sends His grace and
calls us in this life. Those who despise God and drive Him away, will
see at His Second Coming what sort of a God they drove away, and they
will be burned up. Those who live in God now will be in raptures then.
We have such
a rich God, Who has such great grace, but all the same we live in such
poverty. We are upset by the slightest thing; this is a wretched state.
We ought to be joyful all the time. Our life should always be a daily
surprise. Not a day passes without God giving us a new sense of eternal
life.
—I Know A Man In Christ: Elder Sophrony The Hesychast and Theologian by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos (Excerpt Everyday Life — Pastoral Ministry)
Source-thoughtsintrusive.wordpress.com
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