Philokalia Ministries

What is our standard of judgment? When we consider anything about life in this world, or our struggle with vice, or seeking to grow in virtue, where do we look? So often we, even in our spiritual struggles, look to our own reason and judgment. The problem with this is that we only see partial truths, even when we see things clearly. We all have hard spots and blind spots in our perception of reality and of others. If anything, John’s writing on anger and meekness remind us that there must be a willingness as Christians to suspend our judgment and allow the grace of God to touch our minds and hearts; so that we can perceive the greater reality about the other person, even when they commit evil against us. The standard for us is Christ. The standard is the cross and cruciform love. It is when our minds and our hearts have been shaped by this Love, that we begin to be guided by the spirit of peace; and our minds are illuminated with the greater truth of the goodness of the other created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the blood of Christ. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:32:08 Deb Dayton: So many (me) hear to rebut, rather than listen for understanding   00:44:13 Jeff O.: So holy/righteous anger is anger directed at the true enemy - the “demons” - and anger towards another undermines their dignity as an imager of God>   00:48:14 Ambrose Little, OP: Might have more luck typing it in.   00:51:25 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: What about anger that motivates one to take action for justice for others?  Any room in the Fathers for this?  Or is that called something else in their terminology?   00:54:34 Daniel Allen: It is interesting because it seems like Christ acted by suffering with the suffering and without destroying the one causing the suffering   01:00:49 Daniel Allen: A hopeful reading for the Irish such as myself   01:03:24 carol nypaver: Can’t acting out a virtue (patience/silence) lead us to actually acquire that virtue?   01:06:05 Ambrose Little, OP: It seems like while anger can be a useful motivator to act, the more perfect motivation is love. If we see someone hurting and in need, the motivation of compassion and charity seems more than sufficient motive to act, even when the pain/need is caused by some injustice. And when love is our motive, we can then turn that same love towards even the offender, who may be in even greater need by their damaging of their relationship with God and others—they may be imperiling their eternal soul, in addition to whatever circumstances may have led to their unjust action. Contrast that to anger, which only tends to act in favor of the victim, while often seeking the suffering of the offender (or at best ignoring the offender’s need).   01:14:51 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂   01:14:54 iPhone (2): Thank you!   01:15:01 Jeff O.: Thank you, great being with you all.   01:15:01 Art: Thank you!!  

What does obedience allow us to hear? This may seem to be a funny question. In light of how we often characterize obedience or think about it in our own lives, so often it is about setting aside our own will and having to do what another tells us to do. But in light of the fathers’ writings, it becomes clear that obedience is not a kind of slavishness. The etymology of the word obedience is “to hear.”  It allows us to listen and to receive a Word from God that reveals divine truth. Obedience raises us up to comprehend the very love that has saved us.  Of course, one must admit that it is jarring to our sensibilities and our reason. When we hear the stories of the monks’ obedience, we begin to see that it had to do more with their desire for God, their yearning to be conformed to Christ who emptied himself to take upon our humanity and become obedient even unto death. Our obedience leads us to hear that word spoken in our own heart, inviting us to draw close to Christ in every way. This means embracing a wisdom that is wholly unlike what is made manifest within the world and so often shaped by sin. The fathers are living icons of the gospel. What they write and what they do becomes a window revealing the path that we are to walk and that will draw us closer to Christ.  --- Text of chat during the group:  00:14:43 Anthony: I believe there are different sizes and thicknesses for different strength dogs   00:15:05 Debra: Yes...I think you can get them rated for different breeds   00:15:09 Babington (or Babi): I have one too   00:27:03 Paul Fifer: How would one then differentiate between this zeal and scrupulosity?   00:28:12 Babington (or Babi): Hmmm. Perhaps I’m being ruled by flesh at the moment but I feel resistant to this as the Word of God. If I heard correctly the the teacher led the seeker of God to starve himself potentially very destructively in year two. I don’t see that as God’s love. But again perhaps I’m missing something as I’m distracted by cooking for my dogs.   00:36:09 Babington (or Babi): Oh wait. A second day? I thought he directed him to fast for a whole year, not day.   00:41:00 Babington (or Babi): I get that saturated trusting submission and have tasted it as seeker towards a teacher.    But not a whole year of very unhealthy fasting. As you clarify, extremes aren’t the Way. But I’ll go back and listen to podcast. Perhaps I misunderstood him and you. So sorry if so. Much love and gratitude. 🙏🏼🤍   00:43:10 Babington (or Babi): Fasting is great. I thought you read a year not day. A year seems like starvation.   00:45:59 Anthony: I suggest the stick was a fig branch; It is not entirely unreasonable to have him do this.   00:46:32 Anthony: Figs take about 3 years to fruit and this is one way how you start them (I've done it).   01:09:39 Ashley Kaschl: We don’t often come upon stories, though I know there have been a few, of brothers who were stirred to anger or resentment in the keeping of their obedience. Is there a correlation between being purified of anger, and the lack of an interior movement that might convince someone that the authority figure is lording their commands over the one being called to obedience?   01:11:46 Ashley Kaschl: So our anger can point to us the areas in our life where we need to grow in virtue so that we can be perfectly obedient?  

Today someone mentioned to me that Saint John Climacus does not mince words when speaking about the spiritual life, and in particular when speaking about the passions. This is unequivocally true. John does not varnish the truth. His heart has been formed in such a way that it would be impossible to do so; his view of God, man, redemption, and sin is shaped by the cross, and by the fullness of the gospel. Such is the case in our reading this evening of Step 8. St. John begins to define for us the nature of freedom from anger and the virtue that leads us along that path: meekness.  In this step like so many others, our view of reality and our experience as human beings is going to be challenged. Our experience of aggression in ourselves and from others must be seen now through what has been revealed to us in Christ and through the Cross. We must allow the grace of God to shape our identity so deeply that we remain unmoved either by dishonor or by praise. Meekness is allowing the love of God to touch our emotions and affective state as well as the incensive faculty that protects us from sin.  The Scriptures teach us that “the anger of man does not bear fruit acceptable to God.”  The reason for this is that such anger is often driven by an insatiable desire that we be treated in a fashion that satisfies our vainglorious needs or our sense of justice. Anger, however, can become so deeply rooted within the soul that bitterness becomes the lens through which we view relationships, and circumstances of every kind. It can become the log in our eye that prevents us from seeing any goodness in the world or others. Let us, then, listen attentively to what John says and allow him to guide us along this challenging path. --- Text of chat during the group:  00:03:22 FrDavid Abernethy: page 119, para 66   00:18:02 Maple(Hannah) Hong: What page?   00:19:24 Sean: Top of 120   00:20:06 Maple(Hannah) Hong: Thank you, Sean!   00:57:54 Jeff O.: Evagrius talks a lot about the blinding effect of anger on the intellect of the mind, blinding the seer and consequently how meekness allows us to see (know) God   00:58:11 Eric Ewanco: Reacted to "Evagrius talks a lot..." with 👍🏻   00:58:40 carol nypaver: 👍🏼   01:02:24 Ashley Kaschl: Something that might help give a little guidance in regards to feeling the emotion of anger is something that Ven. Fulton Sheen said when he gives perspective on Wrath vs. Righteous Anger, in that he writes,    “Be angry, and sin not”; for anger is no sin under three conditions: (1) If the cause of the anger be just, for example, defense of God’s honor; (2) If it be no greater than the cause demands, that is, if it be kept under control; and (3) If it be quickly subdued: "Let not the sun go down upon your anger.”   01:04:03 Ambrose Little, OP: “How can one take a fire to his bosom and not be burned?”   01:04:36 carol nypaver: Awesome, Ashley.  Can’t go wrong with Ven. Fulton Sheen!   01:08:22 Meghann (she/her) KS: is it like God's, Christ's expressions of anger are always intended toward repentance not punishment... opportunities of wakening not retributive...?  Always pathways toward salvation, not "justice" or closure?  Ours tend to be mixed and partial expressions   01:14:07 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you 🙂   01:14:54 kevin: Thanks father   01:14:55 Jeff O.: Thank you, great being with you all.   01:15:05 Art: Thank you father!   01:15:11 Mitchell Hunt: Thanks father David   01:15:12 Larisa and Tim: Thank you!   01:15:13 Cindy Moran: Thank you Father   01:15:17 Babington (or Babi): Thank you  

To have Christ praying within us, to have Christ fasting within us, to have Christ suffering within us. We hear from the fathers that the ascetical life is meant to draw us into deeper communion with the Lord. The ascetic life must begin and end with Him. If not, it will bear no fruit. Only when our spiritual life is elevated by the grace of God does it become pleasing in God’s sight. Even our virtues must be perfected by His grace. We may have spent many years in silence and prayer and the pursuit of virtue. Then God in his providence may lead us along another path in order that he might fulfill the deepest desires of our heart as well as to bring us to salvation and the perfection of virtue.  We can have no conceit in this regard. Only God sees the nature and the depth of our desire and love. We must follow Him and allow Him to guide us through those He puts in charge of us or those He makes responsible for us. At times, it is only when we are pushed beyond the limits of human strength that we begin to see the power and the action of God’s grace.  Again we can have no illusions about our own desire. As strong as it might be, and even if it does come from God, our weakness and poverty can only be overcome through His mercy and by His wisdom. We must allow Him to draw us more and more deeply into the Paschal Mystery. We must allow our hearts to be shaped by Divine and self-emptying love. --- Text of chat during the group:  00:09:01 FrDavid Abernethy: page 279 J   00:51:54 Anthony: for Sunday of the Syrophoenecian woman, Father told us God tests all of us to have the faith to persevere to the end.   01:19:23 David Fraley: Thank you, Father!  

What does it mean to live in Christ and for Him? Perhaps this is a question that we rarely ask ourselves because it’s too threatening. What would our lives look like if our response to God was absolute? What would our mourning for sin look like if our love for God was filled with desire for Him and for His will?  One would imagine that life, our lives would look much different. It is not just one part of ourselves that is to be touched by the grace of God, but every aspect of our being, our very essence. Saint John and the other Desert fathers speak of mourning for one’s sin in such a visceral fashion because they understood that they were called to participate in a Godly love. God took our flesh upon Himself in order that we might come to experience the fullness of His life and love. To experience themselves as turning away from this gift or betraying this love could only bring about the deepest mourning and their hearts. The question that we perhaps should be asking ourselves is: “why do we lack this quality of mourning?” --- Text of chat during the group: 00:24:51 Charbel & Justin: What page?   00:25:00 Bridget McGinley: 118   00:36:55 Anthony: This is interesting since I can't be the only one who wants to understand _before_ practicing; who wants to know before and judge whether something is worth perseverance.   01:05:59 Anthony: From my college Greek class, there is another connotation: "eleison" comes from the root "luo", "to loosen."   01:22:24 Ambrose Little, OP: It didn’t quite strike me this way before these meditations we are studying, but St. Paul seems to have been expressing this kind of mourning when he wrote about his inability to do the good he wants to do (in his inner self that loves the law of God) but instead does the evil at hand (in his flesh which is at war with himself): “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” But also immediately he proceeds to gratitude for victory through grace: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The same also leads him to “glory in [his] weakness.”   01:25:47 Ambrose Little, OP: (The above was from NABre 🤷🏻‍♂️ 🙂 )   01:26:05 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you 🙂   01:26:57 Jeff O.: Thank you!   01:27:08 kevin: Thank you   01:27:19 Cindy Moran: thank you  

The times reading The Evergetinos I find my mind and heart swimming not in darkness but rather in a light with which I am unfamiliar. For in reading the fathers, everything seems to be turned on its head. The writings are often jarring, but in a similar way to that of the Gospel.  To read deeply is to find one’s heart inflamed. To listen closely is to find something stirred within us that perhaps was once lifeless. The words can be so piercing that they reveal parts of ourselves that we were unaware of or did not know existed. This is what we were shown tonight; and this is what makes every moment of reflecting upon the fathers worth it.   ---   Text of chat during the group:   00:29:34 Mark Kelly: Fr. David is speaking of Fr. Lazarus el Antony.   00:31:23 Mark Kelly: Fr. Lazarus vide:  https://vimeo.com/9794946   00:35:54 Anthony: This section by Isaac is jarring because it appears to conflict w\ith duty to family and community; and it conflicts with the Christian culture ideal which Europeans at least remember from the Middle Ages.  Pope Benedict's catecheses on the saints which built Christendom would be very different if he came from a culture that was dominated by, say, Islam.   00:41:01 Bridget McGinley: I am from Philly...… he ended pretty disgraced. I think the Princehood got to his head. That is a big crown to wear. I agree it is contrary to religious life.   00:43:13 Anthony: In my opinion, I believe I see this "worldiness" emerge in Europe after the rocky path the Germanic tribes had in full conversion to the Faith.  The Romano-Greeks in the East had similar problems manifested in another way - hence the unflattering term "byzantine".  Each culture needs to fully convert and not flatter themselves.   00:43:55 Babington (or Babi): I think it was Saint Therese who wrote “Everything I have and am everything I am is pure gift.”   00:44:17 Babington (or Babi): Oops miswrote   00:44:35 Babington (or Babi): Everything I have and everything I am is pure gift.   00:45:56 iPhone: Principalities ?   00:52:17 Mark Kelly: One of the better-known sayings of the desert fathers is,” There are two things to avoid, an easy life and vain glory.”   00:53:18 iPhone: principalities and powers   00:57:17 Anthony: Monk is from monos = single   00:57:24 Anthony: single minded, so I have heard   01:13:17 iPhone: Really Excellent !   01:15:19 iPhone: Whoa.  Amen   01:18:01 Ambrose Little, OP: Reminds me of the style of parables. First of the unfaithful servants. Then like the inverse of the parable of the lost sheep. But in this case, it’s the celebration of Satan and all of Hell when just one “sheep” is lost.   01:20:52 Bridget McGinley: Thank you Father!   01:20:59 Babington (or Babi): Good stuff.  Thank you Father. God bless you all.

Our journey with Saint John Climacus has not been an easy one; in fact, we get a taste of walking upon that narrow path that leads to the kingdom simply through reading about his vision of the spiritual life and his experience. It reflects the reality and the challenges of the spiritual life, and in particular a life of penance and repentance. To give ourselves over to God, to seek his love above all things, to desire him more than we desire our own lives is the path that St. John is putting before us.  However, there is something within us that resists walking this path. Quite simply it is our ego - the self. Even in our pursuit of God, we can make ourselves every bit as willful in our spiritual discipline as we are in our relationships with others, and in our day-to-day work. Through his description of compunction (sorrow over one’s sins eventually leading to the experience of Godly Joy) St John is seeking to free us from the grip self-centeredness and its delusions. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:09:51 FrDavid Abernethy: page 166 para 49   00:09:56 Kate Truta: Hello!  We are new to the group.  We live in Colorado.   00:10:13 FrDavid Abernethy: page 116   00:10:20 Eric Ewanco: Welcome, Kate!   00:10:41 Kate Truta: Thank you!  Good to be here!   00:19:40 Deb Dayton: Some I send to bring Father s lot of joy!   00:19:49 Deb Dayton: *Duke   00:21:20 Anthony: It's as if these accusations are like a kind of hell   00:24:59 Eric Ewanco: … or, purgatory   00:25:01 Kathy Locher: Can someone tell me what page we're on?   00:27:21 Bridget McGinley: 117 number 51   00:27:43 Kathy Locher: thanks!   00:29:40 Anthony: How does one distinguish the right "amount" of compunction versus a demonic despondency due to slander?   00:29:48 Cindy Moran: Flippant   00:30:14 Eric Ewanco: 👍🏻   00:31:08 Rebecca Thérèse: I'd heard previously that demonic knowledge is incomplete. Is that true and if so what does it mean?   00:41:49 Rachel: It seems like he means something even deeper than not distracting oneself from pain of heart or just as you are alluding to, he is taking it even further. Some songs can console and/or enhance one's sorrow that comes from a passionate nature or natural temperament. When the morning is composed, hidden and is allowed to go deep within by waiting on Our Lord, not escaping into a sorrow that consoles but waves of that abyss wash over one..   00:42:18 Rachel: Mourning'   00:43:08 Rachel: lol me!   00:44:13 Rachel: Sorry, didnt complete that because St. John is describing it..   00:48:35 Rachel: Father, can you think of a Saint whose life really manifests this gift St. John is speaking about? I am sure all of the Saints in some degree experience this but I mean whereit was clearly manifest. Would St. Theresa and St. Therese be examples of this joy?   00:51:55 Vicki Nichols: St. John Neumann manifests this gift, particularly when he was a  young man.   00:52:10 Anthony: So then this fear is not necessarily "wrong" and self-focused, it is not merely an assault of the enemy but it is a permitted stage of repentance?  Is it like what we call attrition that leads to contrition?   00:54:40 Vicki Nichols: iwas responding to the person before   00:54:44 Vicki Nichols: yes 00:56:17 Ambrose Little, OP: St. Dominic was said to often weep while keeping vigil. And he was also known to be supernaturally joyful.   01:00:00 Anthony: Another deep poet on these themes is St. Gregory of Narek, Doctor of the Church.   01:06:39 Cindy Moran: How does this apply to the Jesus Prayer?   01:08:49 Anthony: Is "constant receptivity" you often mention, or overthinking, evidence of the faculty of contemplation, but it is turned to an unworthy and self-destructive subject?   01:14:42 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you 🙂   01:14:46 Rachel: haha   01:14:52 Cindy Moran: 😊   01:15:29 Bridget McGinley: Thank you   01:15:35 Anthony: Thank you!   01:15:38 Ashley Kaschl: Thank you, Father!   01:15:39 Jeff O.: Thank you!   01:15:44 Cindy Moran: Thank you Father!!   01:15:52 Rebecca Thérèse: Happy New Year🙂   01:15:57 Riccardo Orlandi: God bless 01:16:01 Riccardo Orlandi: thank!  

We continued our reading of hypothesis 32 and once again the words of the Fathers are piercing, very much like the words of scripture. This is what makes them ring so true. The Fathers never seek to varnish the truth. The path that we are called to walk upon is the path of Christ. We are called quite literally self-crucifixion. We are to die to self and sin, and to live for God and to live for Him alone. St Paul reminders us: “it is no longer I who lives I (ego) but Christ who lives within me.  It is for this reason that monasteries would put men to the test, making them wait long periods of time before entering. Why do you want to be here? Do you understand what it is that you were taking upon yourself and what you are setting aside?  Do any of us understand what it is to love in the way that we have been shown on the Cross and in the Holy Eucharist? --- Text of chat during the group: 00:18:35 Debra: HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!   00:19:35 Debra: Wow! I didn't realize you have listeners from ALL over the World!!   00:19:58 Ambrose Little, OP: Angela, always nice to have bright sunshine in these meetings. Especially this time of year. 🙂   00:39:28 Anthony: The Rule of St. Basil is pretty stern, too. It surprised me.   00:44:12 Mitch: The Fathers are harsh but it’s refreshing in a watered down, “everything is good enough” society   00:53:52 Anthony: Perhaps this is an example of the heresy of Americanism affecting the Church's attitude to priesthood as a profession.   01:00:10 Paul Fifer: FYI… Here is a link to a pdf for the book Father mentioned “The Struggle with God”… https://jbburnett.com/resources/evdokimov_strugglewGod1966.pdf   01:16:46 Anthony: Don't we vow perfection in baptismal vow?   01:18:02 Bridget McGinley: I was thinking the same thing Anthony. THis was the early Christians way of life married or lay   01:20:58 Anthony: IS this why the demons even suggest blasphemous thoughts - to make us see our beautiful God as ugly? Or to drive us away from trying to contemplate God?   01:23:49 Bridget McGinley: Thank you. Goodnight.   01:24:06 Anthony: Thanks :)   01:24:09 Ashley Kaschl: Thanks be to God. Thank you, Father!   01:24:09 Mitch: thankyou  

We continued our discussion of “joy making mourning” from the Ladder of Divine Ascent. It is like seeing an image slowly come to a state of clarity. There is something so difficult and stinging to our sensibilities when reading this text that it is hard to allow that to happen. But this evening we began to get glimpses of the beauty that St. John is trying to place before our eyes. He wants us to see that tears came into this world as a result of sin. God has given them in order that He might cleanse and purify the heart, and that our sorrow might give way to joy and laughter. God does not ask or desire that we should mourn from sorrow of heart, but rather that out of love for Him we should rejoice with spiritual laughter. God wants to heal us and bring us to the place where sin will be abolished and pain, sorrow and sighing, will have fled away. --- Text of chat during the group:  00:15:03 FrDavid Abernethy: page 114 no 28   00:17:58 Ashley Kaschl: I’d say hi but my mic is being weird 😂   00:18:08 Ashley Kaschl: 😂😂   00:20:33 Rebecca Thérèse: Sorry I'm late, connectivity issues   00:31:53 Ren Witter: I am finding this just so hard. If there is a hurt or injustice, that at times brings up intense feelings of resentment, is that going to be a constant impediment to union with God for as long as the hurt lasts? I guess it just makes me feel a bit hopeless   00:40:21 Ambrose Little, OP: Interesting aside: I saw a scientific experiment recently that showed tears have different chemical compositions based on the circumstances causing them.   00:40:48 Ren Witter: Yes! I love that study   00:40:48 Bridget McGinley: Ambrose that is fascinating!   00:41:41 Ren Witter: And not only that, but they contain a natural pain relieving component particular to the cause. Its really amazing.   01:19:46 Ashley Kaschl: Do you think the grace that leads to compunction is stopped by a division in one’s heart? Like we can want to be truly contrite for sins but also have a hidden attachment to sin which allows for a tension to present itself, but maybe we think about it as frustration or failure? When in reality, it’s a matter of God’s timing?   01:22:43 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you 🙂   01:22:52 Bridget McGinley: Goodnight thank you   01:23:32 Babington (or Babi): Thank you!   01:23:39 Ashley Kaschl: Thank you, Father! Good to see you!  

Tonight, in Hypothesis 32 we are, one might say, confronted with the deepest challenge. It is not unlike the challenge of Christ in the gospel. What is in our hearts shapes who we are as human beings. The externals of religion may be maintained perfectly, and give the appearance of religiosity and holiness. But in reality, our hearts may be very far from God and seeking to do His will. Our hearts may not have the purity of Christ, or what comes about by the action of His grace within us. Such a life not only diminishes monasticism as a whole, but we can easily see how this is true of Christianity and of Christians. if we call ourselves Christians and we receive all that we are given through the Church and by Christ and yet our hearts do not seek him or his will, then we are scandal and a stumbling block. A monk may be tonsured and wear the external garb, but what does this mean in reality? Would he not be the most pitiful of individuals to leave everything in the world externally, but in his heart to cling to these things? --- Text of chat during the group: 01:01:14 Anthony: The thorns of the world (praise, false glory, a desire for sophistication) choke out the good seeds that. sprouted.   01:08:26 Anthony: Part of the issue:  show "me" a sacrifice that is worthwhile, and "I" can do it.  We need to find a worthy sacrifice.   01:13:44 Anthony: And in that case, each of us can "intuit" (?) by grace what is the particular sacrifice or charism we are called?   01:13:59 Anthony: such as Francis' life being different than Basil's charism.   01:14:46 Ren Witter: Wow   01:16:14 Anthony: Thanks.  I like the Our Lady of Constantinole(?) in the background.