The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XVI: On Avarice, Part II and Chapter XVII, On Non-Possessiveness, Part I

Freedom! We often associate this word with our own rights in this world or our capacity to do as we will and go where we want. A kind of promise is put out to us - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Yet the image of freedom that is put before us by the saints and by Saint John in particular is attached to our willingness to be “detached” from the things of the world. God created all things good but in our sin our tendency is to idolize them. We seek our identity and happiness in the things of this world and we work ourselves to the point of exhaustion to protect these things as well as ourselves from others. We do not want to lose what we have or what we have earned. 

Yet we very quickly learn that this is no real happiness. In fact, it is the root of all evils. The deeper that root becomes, the greater our desire for the things of this world grows. It begins to produce the fruit of hatred, thefts, envy, separations, enmities, storms, remembrance of wrong, hardheartedness, and murderers. Therefore, what we hold up as having so much value for ourselves, and what seems to promise us freedom and safety eventually becomes our prison or the shackles that bind us. It is only in having tasted the things above that one begins to find joy, freedom from care, and the loss of anxiety. If we obtain this virtue, John tells us, we run the race with the swiftness of athletes of old - that is, stripped and unimpeded. 

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Text of chat during the group:

00:11:00 Rebecca Thérèse: Yes happy birthday!   00:11:34 Adam Paige: Reacted to "Yes happy birthday!" with 🎂   00:15:23 Lawrence Martone: Fr. Abernethy,   00:15:50 Lawrence Martone: What is your opinion of The Noon Day Devil book?   00:22:32 Connor: Re: point 1 - Prayer of the Last Optina Elders:   O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace, help me in all things to rely upon your holy will.  In every hour of the day reveal your will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me.  Teach me to treat all that comes to throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that your will governs all.  In all my deeds and words, guide my thoughts and feelings.  In unforeseen events, let me not forget that all are sent by you.  Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others.  Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring.  Direct my will, teach me to pray.  And you, yourself, pray in me.  Amen.   00:26:01 Susan M: Father, who are the last Optina Elders?   00:28:04 Connor: Guess I’m the quote guy today:   “All our peace in this sad life lieth in humble suffering rather than in not feeling adversities. He who best knoweth how to suffer shall possess the most peace; that man is conqueror of himself and lord of the world, the friend of Christ, and the inheritor of heaven.” — a Kempis (Imitation of Christ)   00:31:14 Eric Ewanco: Do we know the Greek for "non-possessive" (my translation uses "poor"/"poverty" but I like your translation better)?   00:31:52 Connor: Replying to "Father, who are the …" “Over the course of one century—from Elder Leonid's arrival in 1829 until the Monastery's forced closure by the Communists in 1923—Optina, with its Skete of St. John the Forerunner, was at the center of a tremendous spiritual revival in Russia.”   https://orthochristian.com/65171.html   00:31:59 John: Replying to "Do we know the Greek..."   So does mine (archive.org).   00:32:39 Connor: I was responding to a question Father, no need to read it lol.   00:35:18 Susan M: Thank you.   00:37:14 Connor: Replying to "Do we know the Greek…" ἀκτημοσύνης in response to Greek for non-possessiveness. Literally “landless.”   00:45:31 Anthony: To forget the Beatific Vision is to merely fight the devil mostly conscious of your own efforts.  Been there.  Done that / Doing that. Not healthy.   00:52:44 Connor: St. Louis de Montfort famously got into bar fights over Our Lady’s honor… even after his ordination…   00:57:03 Anthony: Regarding "principles" in our Anglo-American world it seems to me some of our principles have been developed and used to harden us against conscience and towards vice.   00:57:16 Louise: I find that it is mostly the human gesture and the smile in return that is the gift, beyond the money given; the person feels treated as a human being at this moment.   00:57:41 Anthony: Reacted to "I find that it is mo..." with ❤️   00:57:49 Anthony: Replying to "I find that it is mo..."    I agree   01:18:40 Cindy Moran: Thank you   01:18:43 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂