No Middle Path: Escape Gehenna vs. Seek the Kingdom

St. Isaac the Syrian does not allow us the comfortable fiction that we can want less than everything and still be safe. His words strip away a thousand modern compromises. To say I only wish to escape Gehenna but not to enter the Kingdom is for him a form of madness. There are not three places. There are two. To fall short of the Kingdom is already to enter the place of loss. Hell is not merely fire but exclusion. It is the outer darkness of having turned away from the Face that was offered. The tragedy is not that we were punished but that we did not desire enough.

This is why the spiritual life cannot be treated as damage control. We are not here merely to avoid catastrophe. We are here to be transfigured. Christ did not come so that we might barely survive eternity but so that we might shine as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father. Every half hearted approach to faith is therefore a refusal of glory. It is not humility. It is fear disguised as prudence. Isaac calls us to a hunger that dares to want everything God wants to give.

From this flows his severe counsel about silence and withdrawal. He is not condemning love of neighbor. He is defending the integrity of the heart. If a man seeks to heal others while losing his own clarity then his charity has become a form of self betrayal. A clouded mind cannot give light. A weakened conscience cannot give strength. To remain in constant exposure when one is not yet stable is not heroism. It is negligence. Isaac insists that the first obedience is to guard the sanctuary of the heart. When the heart is healthy it teaches without words. When it is sick even holy words become hollow.

Here he shows something deeply uncomfortable for our age. Being seen is not the same as being holy. Being useful is not the same as being whole. One can be busy for God while drifting away from Him. To be far from men in order to be with God is not selfishness when it preserves the soul. In time such a life benefits others more than any speech because it radiates truth rather than merely talking about it.

This leads to Isaac’s terrifying diagnosis of how corruption begins. The devil does not start with fornication. He starts with vainglory. He offers the sweetness of being admired for virtue. It seems harmless. It even feels spiritual. Yet the moment the mind steps out of its refuge to taste this praise the door is opened. What begins as spiritual self regard becomes sensual fantasy. What was once clear becomes confused. The fall is not sudden. It is incremental and therefore more deadly. One indulgence prepares the next. The first passion creates the conditions for the second.

The remedy is not endless argument with thoughts. Isaac is blunt. To wrestle with passions once they have filled the imagination is already to be weakened. Images and idols are stamped upon the mind. The heart loses its simplicity. The truer strategy is to outrun them by remembrance of virtue and God. When the soul turns immediately toward what is pure and beautiful the invading thoughts find no place to lodge. They depart without leaving a trace.

Everything in these pages converges on one demand. We must want God more than our safety more than our reputation more than our consolations and more than our sins. The Kingdom is not won by those who merely avoid falling but by those who run. To hold anything back is already to drift toward the outer darkness. To give everything is to begin even now to shine.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:02:12 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Humility Real? - how heart react when another wounds us
Is our understanding of the Kingdom and its light childish or rooted in mature faith
Do we desire the kingdom or look for an in-between state
Do we teach others before we are healed?
Enemy is subtle - vainglorious to focus on sin or temptation. Should focus on virtue.
Resolve and labor tied together
Virtue must be practiced otherwise we are like a fledgling without feathers
Humility, fervor, tears can be lost through negligence
Affliction should ultimately give way to hope.
Should not seek ways to avoid the cross
 •  11. Begin with courage.  Don’t divide the soul but trust God absolutely

00:02:42 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 173

00:04:04 Una’s iPhone: It’s the feast of St Agnes today, my name day

00:04:24 Una’s iPhone: Una is Agnes in Irish

00:05:06 Una’s iPhone: Those early virgins would have lived at home

00:05:24 Una’s iPhone: Like hermits of a sort

00:08:16 Anna: We're going to get hit hard. Prayers for my children and I not to lose power.

00:08:26 Anna: GA

00:08:28 Anna: Ice

00:14:38 read.ai meeting notes: noah added read.ai meeting notes to the meeting.

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00:17:49 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 173, # 14, final paragraph

00:26:57 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 174, # 15, first paragraph

00:33:18 Ryan Ngeve: Father if we ought to hide our virtues from others for the sake of humility, how then are we to teach others through our example

00:50:13 Jonathan Grobler: Once heard someone say, in the lines off, a true reflection of the health of a parish, is how long the confession line is.

00:51:04 Ben: Anna says; As a mother, I feel this exhortation to my bones.  I have these little people to teach, who have much greater purity of heart than I.

00:54:57 Jesssica Imanaka: I love the suggestion that families in a parish should meet to discuss the asceticism of parenthood and to help and support each other in that.

00:56:43 Eleana Urrego: Mother Teresa said is not doing a lot of things, but to do the small things with love.

00:57:08 Bob Čihák, AZ: Here's most of what I know about St. Charbel: https://www.ncregister.com/features/devotion-to-st-sharbel-grows-in-us

00:58:20 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "Here's most of what ..." with 👍🏼

01:00:25 Jesssica Imanaka: Desert mothers reading group!

01:01:05 Ryan Ngeve: Reacted to "Here's most of what …" with ❤️

01:01:13 shang yang: Reacted to "Here's most of what ..." with 👍🏼

01:02:17 Jessica McHale: I would pack up and move out of Boston if there were a parish anywhere that did this.

01:03:57 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 174, # 16, last paragraph

01:06:52 Ambrose Little: Best movie ever

01:07:06 Eleana Urrego: what is the name?

01:07:32 Ambrose Little: A Christmas Story

01:07:40 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "A Christmas Story" with 👍🏼

01:16:17 Angela Bellamy: If a person wanted to be a saint and then found every time that they prayed they would be taken by imagination to the Great works they would do in God's name, interrupting the prayer to God but focusing on themselves in this fantasy... Ashamed then, the person decides they do not want to be a saint but only a servant of God, and then the fantasy begins to dissolve? Is this accurate to what you are saying?

01:19:17 Angela Bellamy: Praise and glory to God

01:22:34 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father, may God bless you and your mother. Stay warm!

01:22:34 Bob Čihák, AZ: Thank you, Father, and all participants.

01:22:35 Jessica McHale: Many prayers!!!!

01:22:38 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you☺️

01:22:41 Catherine Opie: Always

01:22:42 Janine: God bless Father…

01:22:42 Art: Thank you Father.

01:22:44 Elizabeth Richards: 🙏🏼

01:22:48 Angela Bellamy: Prayers Father. Thank you

01:23:00 Christopher Berry: Thank you, Father!

01:23:03 Art: Don’t shoot your eye out!

01:23:18 Catherine Opie: 🙏🏻

01:23:20 Rod Castillo: Thank you Father