The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian - Homily VI, Part I

St Isaac begins Homily Six like one who will not let us hide from ourselves. He does not admire our efforts nor comfort our vanity. He forces us to look directly at what we are and at what we truly desire. A man who slips into accidental sins, he says, is not wicked but weak. And God allows this weakness to appear so that the conscience is pierced and the truth becomes unavoidable. God does not let the soul rise above these falls before its second birth because He wants us awake rather than respectable. Our failures become a kind of mercy. They expose the illusion that we are strong or self sufficient or spiritually advanced. They ask one question above all others. Do you desire God at all

It is a raw question. A frightening question. Yet every stumble presses it deeper into the heart. If we fall and tremble the heart is alive. If we fall and justify ourselves the heart is asleep. Isaac calls that shameless. He says that without fervent faith or fear or chastisement the soul will never truly draw near to the love of God. These are not punishments but the three torches that light the way toward Him. If I resist them I do not want God himself. I want an idol shaped like comfort or control or admiration.

Then Isaac turns to the roots beneath the roots. Turbulent thoughts come from gluttony. Ignorance and superficiality come from constant talk. Worry over worldly matters scatters the soul like chaff tossed into the wind. These are not merely moral observations. They are spiritual symptoms. They show us the condition of the heart. I can fast until my stomach twists and keep vigil until my knees ache yet if my thoughts are full of resentment or anxious grasping or the need to preserve my image then all my labors remain barren. The body strains while the passions settle deeper into the mind. Nothing changes because nothing inside has surrendered.

Isaac gives an image that cuts to the bone. The man who clings to anxiety or covetousness or the memory of wrongs is like one who sows seed into thorns. He works. He sweats. He prays. He begs God to respond. Yet when he lies on his bed he groans because he cannot reap a harvest. The soil itself has been sabotaged by his thoughts. He fasts and wonders why God does not see. He humbles himself outwardly yet inwardly still clings to his own desires. God answers through the prophet. In the very day of your fasts you do your own wills. You sacrifice your free will to your own idols when you should be offering it to Me. It is one of the most devastating revelations in Scripture. The greatest offering we possess is the free will. And we lay it not on the altar of God but before our own desires.

Here Isaac is not simply giving ascetical instruction. He is tearing open the heart to expose its truth. He is asking us to face the one question we spend our lives avoiding. Do you really want God or do you only want the appearance of holiness. Do you want the Kingdom or do you want the feeling of being spiritual. Do you want the fire of God or do you want to protect your own self created identity. Until we answer this honestly all asceticism remains external and fruitless.

The early lines of Homily Six are not gentle. They are surgical. They strip away excuses and self deception. They show us that the spiritual life is not perfected by effort alone but by the purification of desire. Not by striving but by surrender. Not by vigils and fasts but by a heart emptied of its own will. I will never know God until I want Him more than I want myself. And my accidental sins are the strange mercy that reveals how much I still cling to myself.

Isaac begins with our weakness so that we might finally seek the One who heals. He begins with our falls so that true longing may rise. He reveals our poverty so that desire for God might no longer be a sentence we say but a cry that burns within us.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:05:35 Fr. Charbel Abernethy: Page 169 Homily 6

00:05:49 Janine: Father can you say the name of that book again?

00:06:58 Janine: Thank you..it sounds very good

00:10:39 Janine: I just bought it on Thrift books

00:11:57 Bob Čihák, AZ: P. 169, # 1

00:13:55 Una’s iPhone: Review on Amazon: Great Byzantine mystic https://a.co/d/2pt0HfE

00:15:28 Una’s iPhone: Sorry, wrong link

00:15:58 Una’s iPhone: Can’t find your comment. It’s on the book. Here’s the book

00:16:03 Una’s iPhone: https://a.co/d/clx1Saz

00:16:13 Una’s iPhone: Sorry!

00:16:49 Ben: They got scared and scrubbed it!

00:17:23 Vanessa Nunez: Reacted to "They got scared and …" with 😂

00:18:25 Bob Čihák, AZ: What are “accidental sins”? I think of sins as requiring a conscious act of the will.

00:40:07 Erick Chastain: How do you avoid sensory things in the mind as he says you should?

00:44:20 Maureen Cunningham: Kingdom of God  id with in

00:49:11 Julie: I do Fr don’t know how to put my hand up…

00:49:29 Jesssica Imanaka: I worry about my own laziness... devoting a lot of time to prayer and spiritual reading can also carry the danger of acedia for me.

00:49:58 Jesssica Imanaka: As if the parasympathetic nervous system is getting overactivated...

00:51:29 John ‘Jack’: NYS just finally started disallowing cell phones schools; I thought they’re would be more kick back than there was. 

Children WANT structure, as do we. Obedience ultimately.

00:55:35 Anthony: The guilt of "jansenism" and the Calvinist work ethic of busyness and production are especially present in America and drives us to take these vices as virtues and drive out willfulness to get what we think is good.

00:57:16 Eleana Urrego: Reacted to "The guilt of "jansen..." with 👍🏼

00:57:34 Jesssica Imanaka: The Divine Office app can help with ribbon placement in the Liturgy of Hours volumes.

00:58:41 Larry Ruggiero: Found a YouTube that entitled The Self-Phone Setup Guide

00:59:18 Larry Ruggiero: It says let us begin by making our phone…BORING

01:06:48 Una’s iPhone: Reacted to "The Divine Office ap…" with 👌

01:09:00 Una’s iPhone: Replying to "I do Fr don’t know h…"
It’s under Reactions. It’s a heart icon in my iPhone

01:09:29 Una’s iPhone: Reacted to "The guilt of "jansen…" with 👌

01:12:29 Eleana Urrego: Thanks for the movie recomendation, My family love it.

01:13:05 Joan Chakonas: Lately I have come to realize that there really is no activity or minute in my day when I can’t ask God for help.  I am so vainglorious He is teaching me basically every idea I come up with on my own is vanity and I’m learning to experience peace.

01:14:06 Joan Chakonas: I LOVE the desert fathers

01:14:11 Thomas: It feels as though it would be simplest to be obedient to somebody, if you were to do bodily labors, because the it would be hard for it to be for your will or ego, but what should be done if you couldn’t be immediately obedient

01:16:53 Joan Chakonas: This hour goes too fast

01:17:08 Thomas: It feels as though I can’t trust anything I want to do even if it may technically be good, because I can’t trust what the reasons I give myself for doing these things

01:17:10 Joan Chakonas: Yrs

01:17:13 Joan Chakonas: Yes!!

01:17:33 Maureen Cunningham: Thank You always a Blessing

01:17:37 Jesssica Imanaka: I have to pick up my daughter from extended day care, otherwise another hour would be fine!

01:18:18 Janine: Thank you Father!

01:18:40 Kevin Burke: Thank You Father!

01:19:13 David Swiderski, WI: Thank you Father may God Bless you and your mother.

01:19:35 John ‘Jack’: Thanks Father