We picked up this evening with Hypothesis 12. The subtitle is on avoiding idle talk. However, this does not do justice to what we are given in the text. It is revealed to us how we are to kindle within our hearts the fire of love for God that then gives rise to a holy sacrifice of praise. Thus, the greatest thing that we can give God is to emulate the angels who praise Him without ceasing. Our love for the Lord should give rise to an urgent longing within the heart to call out to Him constantly ...
Jun 04, 2024•59 min•Season 6Ep. 147
St. John Climacus brings us now to discuss the fruits of the ascetic life. We picked up this evening with Step 27 on “stillness of mind and body”. John is very hesitant to approach such a subject. He does not want to distract the warrior from the task at hand; that is, those who are engaged in the spiritual warfare against the passions and the provocations of the evil one. He only relents because he understands how important it is to see the goal of the spiritual life so that it might increase o...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 102
As we conclude Hypothesis 11, we are given very solid food to nourish our understanding of the nature of prayer and our demeanor. How is it that we are called to worship God, to pray the psalms, and what is our demeanor to be following that worship? A kind of liturgical asceticism must guide and direct our prayer and piety. Even the way that we pray and celebrate the liturgy, and one might say especially here, must allow the grace of God to guide and direct us. As always, Christ is the standard ...
May 28, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 6Ep. 146
We come to the end of Step 26 on Discernment and in doing so we begin to see, or at least get a glimpse of, its importance for the spiritual life. So often sin distorts are perception of reality. It prevents us from seeing with clarity both the dignity and the blessings that come from being a son or daughter of God, baptized into Christ - as well as preventing us from seeing the darkness of sin. Christ tells us in the gospel that when the eye has been darkened completely, how great is the darkne...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 7Ep. 101
All that we do is to be touched by the grace of God, shaped by it, and perfected by it. This includes our virtues, and also the manner in which we pray. Psalmody has always been apart of the prayer tradition of the church and in particular of the monastics. The psalms capture within them both the adversities and the joys that we experience in this world. It is the most important thing that we can do as human beings; to seek to God and offer a sacrifice of praise. Therefore, the monks are very ca...
May 21, 2024•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 145
Every week it is as if we are diving into living waters that renew and refresh the soul. This is particularly true of step 26 on Discernment and St. John’s summary towards its conclusion. So often as is true with the Fathers, St. John makes use of concrete and colorful imagery to capture for us the nature of the spiritual life and in this case discernment. What one gathers in so many of the teachings is that Faith involves seeing; a pulling back of the veil that allows us to see with perfect cla...
May 09, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 7Ep. 100
The focus of the Evergetinos this evening was on praying the psalms. However, as always with the writings of the fathers, the focus isn’t simply on the external actions, but the meaning of them. How do we pray as members of the body of Christ? Is there a kind of liturgical asceticism that must match our bodily asceticism? What is the measure of our prayer? In other words, as those who live in a spirit of repentance and seek purity of heart, how do these realities shape the way we pray. The fathe...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 144
As St. John draws us forward with these simple sayings about discernment and its fruit, we begin to see the immeasurable beauty of the ascetic life and the action of God’s grace. The life that God calls us to is not one of frenetic activity but rather the cultivation of purity of heart and humility in order that He might act within us. We do not seek simply freedom from sin but rather the life of the kingdom. It is the love, the virtue, the goodness of Christ that transforms the world. It is our...
May 02, 2024•1 hr•Season 7Ep. 99
We continued with St. John’s summary of discernment and its particular fruit in the spiritual life. However, it does not read like a summary. Each saying opens us up to a divine reality and a participation in the life of Christ that comes to us by grace and the ascetic life. One cannot help but be captivated by the beauty of what St. John describes. It becomes evident that what we are being drawn into is the very beauty of Christ and that of the kingdom. Grace has the capacity to transform even ...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 7Ep. 98
We continued our discussion of prayer and the things that often become an obstacle to it. Much of the discussion this evening focused upon the things that make us lazy or weary in prayer or lead us to drowsiness. One of the important things that the fathers teach us is that sleep is an appetite that is to be ordered like any other appetite. Our life has been given to us for repentance; that is, to turn toward God and to seek to love him with all of our heart. It is this reality that should shape...
Apr 23, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Season 6Ep. 143
As we come toward the end of Step 26 on Discernment, St. John begins to offer us a summary of all that we have considered in the previous pages. In doing this, he alters his typical way of writing. One may speculate that he does this because of the importance of the virtue of discernment; both in fostering it and in protecting it. Using brief sayings, very much like those found in the Philokalia, St. John begins to lay out for us the path to perfecting this virtue as well as to speak of the frui...
Apr 11, 2024•59 min•Season 7Ep. 97
Breaking the night for prayer!! The very idea either never comes into the mind of modern Christians or it sends a shudder through the heart. The idea of limiting something like sleep for the sake of prayer, of humbling the mind and body in such a way on purpose and regularly seems to express a type of insanity. Would I not make myself sick or incapable of working the next day if such a practice were embraced in modern times. Yet, it is a constant practice throughout the spiritual tradition; to s...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 6Ep. 142
With each passing week, as we read St. John’s thoughts on discernment, we begin to see how it touches every aspect of our life. So often we confuse this gift with intellectually analyzing the circumstances around us or internal experiences and feelings or our perception of others’ actions. Yet discernment is not rooted in our private judgment. Rather, it arises out of union and communion with He who is Truth and Love. We engage in the ascetic life and seek purity of heart in order that we compre...
Apr 04, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 7Ep. 96
The fathers continue to speak to us about service and work and the disposition that we are to have in doing it. Our understanding must move from a functional understanding of labor; engaging in it in a way that is determined by private judgment or by the desire for worldly things. Everything that we do must be tied to our service of the providence of God. In other words, we are responding to the call of Love. The way that the Christian works and responds to the needs of others (as well as the on...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 6Ep. 141
Discernment, St. John tells us, arises out of humility. It also allows us to see the value of humility in the spiritual life. It is the virtue above all virtues, that we must cling to in the spiritual battle. The enemy will seek to confuse us in one way or another; by flattery or by seemingly knowing our thoughts and placing ideas before us which then make us fear their control over us. However, discernment and humility, both protect our capacity to live in He who is the truth. It also allows us...
Mar 28, 2024•58 min•Season 7Ep. 95
What a beautiful group! Beauty, however, is not only found in the things that are attractive or appeal to our sensibilities. What is beautiful is found in the truth – the truth that speaks to the depths of our hearts and our religiosity. Once again, the fathers speak to us and present to us the gospel in unvarnished fashion. What is the disposition that we are to have in our service of God and others? If we give ourselves over to task with obedience, then we can be assured that God will provide ...
Mar 26, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 6Ep. 140
Discernment is so much more than our analyzing the realities and circumstances around us by the use of intellect and reason. These faculties, as wonderful as they are, have inherent limitations. They are not infinite, nor can they speak of God as he is in himself. What God begins to show us in the spiritual life is that the more that we enter his love and truth, the more we are drawn into a mystery that is beyond us. Faith is described by many of the Saints as a “dark obscure knowing”. It is God...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr•Season 7Ep. 94
We are drawn ever deeper into the subtle manifestations of Avarice and how the demons make use of this passion to draw us into other sins. Indeed, it is a fearsome vice. The evil one can convince us that our identity is dependent on our having a certain objects or money and the security that it seems to offer us. Once we have given ourselves over to this thought, it gradually oppresses the mind and heart of the individual. Our incapacity to discern the truth of avarice’s grip upon us, we lose th...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 139
This evening we continued our discussion of discernment; in particular, developing an awareness of the action of the demons and their attempts to lead us astray. However, John also seeks to make us aware of the fact that it is not only the demons that we have to be aware of but our human nature in its fallen state. We are often weak of will and changeable in our mind. We are filled with contradictions and will often choose that which offers nothing over the love and the mercy of God. We have wit...
Mar 14, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 93
We take up this evening a new hypothesis (VI) dealing with the ownership of property. At the heart of it, however, is the temptation to avarice and the impact that it has upon the spiritual life and upon our commitments to God and others. The monks relinquishment of property, their embrace of a life of poverty and simplicity, highlights for us the subtle temptations that are involved in our attachment to the things of the world. Where lust and gluttony perhaps fail to satisfy - avarice often ste...
Mar 12, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 138
As we read St. John Climacus, we begin to see discernment as rooted in our relationship with God; a relationship that is founded upon the revelation of God‘s love and the desire that it stirs within the human heart to respond in kind. If we love God, then it is not going to seem to be a burden to us to take every thought captive and bring it before God for his blessing or judgment. Nor is waiting upon the Lord going to be a point of frustration. Rather, when we love God, we understand that he is...
Mar 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 7Ep. 92
Sometimes in the simplest teachings is found the greatest wisdom. Such is true in tonight‘s readings from The Evergetinos. The focus is on work, how we engage in it and also how we engage others with whom we work. What becomes evident is that the Christian works in a distinctive fashion. Above all charity is to guide the manner in which we work, our diligence, and also the way we treat others. Whether they are good workers or not, we do not compare ourselves to them or the quality of our labor. ...
Mar 05, 2024•58 min•Season 6Ep. 137
Discernment, as we have said, is the fruit of humility. Having removed the impediment of pride and having purified the heart of the passions, one comes to comprehend the things of the kingdom and the will of God. St. John gives us one example after another of how discernment helps us to perceive the things that lead us to God and that teach us to embrace that which endures. As one progresses in the spiritual life, however, discernment is not simply the ability to know God‘s will, but rather also...
Feb 29, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 91
Everything about what it is to be a human being should be touched and shaped by the grace of God. Our identity and purpose comes through Christ. When we lose sight of this, a kind of disorder and imbalance enters into the way that we work, the kind of work that we take up, and the time that we spend engaged in it. This evening we were given one story after another about the nature of the work the desert monks did. Their focus was on manual labor that allowed them to be attentive to God while eng...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 136
In St. John’s discussion of discernment, he reveals to us the beauty of a human being transformed by the grace of God and living in communion with Christ by removing every impediment within the heart and by constantly crying out to him in prayer. At the very center of this reality is the “eye of the soul”. It is extremely beautiful, St. John explains, and next to the angels it surpasses all things. The angels constantly gaze upon God and the purified eye of the soul, the nous, allows us to conte...
Feb 22, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 90
We continued our discussion from The Evergetinos on idleness. What begins to emerge from the wisdom of the fathers is that everything that is part of our life as human beings is filled with meaning and touched by grace. God has ordained that we provide for ourselves by the work of our hands. Furthermore, by this very same work, we are attentive to the needs of others. Work allows us to show charity to others in their needs. Avoiding idleness not only allows us to engage in fruitful labor but hel...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 135
As we have discussed, the fruit of humility is discernment. But what is that? Is it simply private judgment, a human wisdom that has deepened over the course of the years? St. John gradually begins to reveal to us that it is a freedom that emerges from the removal of the impediments of our passions. A sole passion, the desire for God, begins to direct and guide our lives as well as reveal to us the truth about our actions and the realities around us. Yet, it is humility that must continue to gui...
Feb 15, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 89
What a blessing it is to read slowly. It allows insights to unfold before our minds and imaginations that we often would not be attentive to due to our typical need to rush. Hurry, most often, comes from the evil one who seeks to undermine our peace. It is lingering over the thoughts of the fathers on idleness that we begin to understand that what they are talking about is not simply avoiding laziness and sloth. They are revealing to us that keeping our focus upon God in mind and body, that is w...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 6Ep. 135
Where are we in the spiritual battle? Do we understand the virtues that are generally most necessary in the pursuit of virtue? So often in our day, we approach the spiritual life in a piecemeal fashion, gleaning from the writing of saints things that speak to our own particular sensibilities. But are any of these things going to help us address the dominant passions that we struggle with? We cannot be lazy in the labors of the spiritual life. We are blessed to be able to sit at the feet of the g...
Feb 08, 2024•58 min•Season 7Ep. 88
We turn now in the Evergetinos to consider the “avoidance of idleness”. With this, of course, we are compelled to consider the nature of work, and its connection to the spiritual life and our sanctification. Avoiding idleness is not simply keeping busy - much less busyness. It is something that allows us to prevent the mind and the heart from wandering from He who is the source of life, God. We are not angels. We are called to provide for ourselves and also to provide for the poor. And so it is ...
Feb 06, 2024•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 134
