Lord! Lord!

October 30, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Phil. 2:24-30; Luke 6:46-7:1] And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Why do they call Him Lord, but do not do the Lord’s will; that is, why do they not ac­knowl­edge His lord­ship in their deeds? Be­cause they on­ly call with their tongue, and not with their heart. If their heart were to ut­ter: “Lord, Thou art my Lord,” then com­plete read­i­ness would a­bide in it to sub­mit to the one whom they con­fess as their Lord. But since they do not have this, their deeds do not match their tongue; where­as deeds al­ways match the heart. All right, so there is no point in call­ing: “Lord, Lord”? No, not so. But it is nec­es­sary to make the ex­ter­nal word match the in­ner word, which is the feel­ing and dis­po­si­tion of the heart. Sit and re­flect up­on the Lord and your­self: what is the Lord and what are you? Think a­bout what the Lord has done and still does for you, why you live and how it will end. You im­me­di­ate­ly will come to the con­vic­tion that there is no oth­er way than to stead­fast­ly ful­fil the Lord’s en­tire will; there is no oth­er path for us. This con­vic­tion gives birth to a read­i­ness to ful­fil in deed what is ex­pressed by the word “Lord.” With such read­i­ness a need for help from a­bove will be awak­en­ed, and from it the prayer: “Lord, Lord! Help me and give me strength to walk in Thy will.” And this call will be pleas­ing to the Lord.

All-night Vigils

October 24, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Phil 1:20-27; Luke 6:12-19] And He continued all night in prayer to God. Here is the foun­da­tion and be­gin­ning of Chris­tian all-night Vig­ils. A prayer­ful heat chas­es a­way sleep, and ex­hil­a­ra­tion of the spir­it does not al­low one to no­tice the pass­ing of time. True men of prayer do not no­tice this; it seems to them that they had just begun to pray, mean­while day has al­ready ap­pear­ed. But un­til one reach­es such per­fec­tion, he must take on the la­bour of vig­ils. Solitaries have borne this and bear it; ce­no­bit­ic mo­nas­tics have borne this and bear it; rev­er­ent and God-fear­ing lay­peo­ple have borne this and bear it. But though vig­il comes with dif­fi­cul­ty, its fruit re­mains in the soul, di­rect­ly and con­stant­ly pres­ent — peace of soul and con­tri­tion, with weak­en­ing and ex­haus­tion of the bod­y. It is a state very valu­able for those who are zeal­ous a­bout pros­per­ing in the spir­it! That is why in plac­es where vig­ils are es­tab­lish­ed (on Athos), they do not want to give them up. Ev­ery­one re­al­izes how dif­fi­cult it is, but no­bod­y has a de­sire to re­scind this or­der, for the sake of the prof­it which the soul re­ceives from vig­ils. Sleep, more than any­thing, re­lax­es and feeds the flesh; vig­ils more than any­thing hum­ble it. One who sleeps abun­dant­ly is burdened by spir­i­tu­al deeds and is cold to­wards them; he who is vig­i­lant is quick in move­ment, like an an­te­lope, and burns in the spir­it. If the flesh must be taught to be good, like a slave, then there is no bet­ter way to suc­ceed in this than through fre­quent vig­ils. Here the flesh ful­ly feels the pow­er of the spir­it over it, and learns to sub­mit to it; while the spir­it ac­quires the hab­it of reigning over the flesh.

Be sober, vigilant and pray

October 22, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [Phil. 1:8-14; Luke 5:12-16] The lep­er fell down be­fore the Lord and besought: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. The Lord said: I will: be thou clean. And im­me­di­ate­ly the lep­ro­sy de­part­ed from him. So does ev­ery mor­al lep­ro­sy im­me­di­ate­ly de­part as soon as one falls down be­fore the Lord with faith, re­pen­tance, and con­fes­sion — it tru­ly de­parts and los­es any pow­er over him. Why does the lep­ro­sy some­times re­turn again? For the same rea­son that bodi­ly dis­eases re­turn. One who has re­cov­er­ed is told, “do not eat that, do not drink this, do not go there.” If he does not obey, the dis­ease again flares up. So it is in the spir­i­tu­al life. One must be so­ber, vig­i­lant, and pray — then the dis­ease of sin will not re­turn. If you are not at­ten­tive to­ward your­self, if you al­low your­self to see, hear, say, and do ev­ery­thing in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly, how can sin not flare up and take pow­er once again? The Lord charged the lep­er to ful­fil all ac­cord­ing to the law. This means that up­on con­fes­sion one must re­ceive a pen­ance and faith­ful­ly ful­fil it; with­in it is con­ceal­ed great pre­ven­tive strength. But why do some say: this sin­ful hab­it has over­come me, I can­not han­dle my­self. Ei­ther be­cause re­pen­tance and con­fes­sion were not com­plete, or be­cause af­ter mak­ing pre­cau­tionary chang­es he ad­heres on­ly weak­ly to them, or in­dulges him­self. He wants to do ev­ery­thing with­out to­il and self-co­er­cion, and is laugh­ed at by the en­e­my. Re­solve to stand un­to death and show [this resolve] in deed, and you will see what pow­er there is in this. It is true that in ev­ery in­sur­mount­able pas­sion that comes up the en­e­my pos­sess­es the soul, but this is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion; for he im­me­di­ate­ly flees as soon as you pro­duce an in­ner change, with God’s help.

Who is free of temptations?

October 16, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Wednes­day. [Eph. 5:25-33; Luke 4:1-15] The dev­il ap­proach­es the God-man with temp­ta­tions. Who a­mong men is free of them? He who goes ac­cord­ing to the will of the evil one does not ex­pe­ri­ence at­tacks, but is sim­ply turn­ed more and more to­ward evil. As soon as one be­gins to come to him­self and in­tends to be­gin a new life ac­cord­ing to God’s will, im­me­di­ate­ly the en­tire sa­tan­ic realm en­ters in­to ac­tion: they has­ten to scat­ter good thoughts and the in­ten­tions of the re­pen­tant one in any way they can. If they do not man­age to turn him aside, they at­tempt to hin­der his good re­pen­tance and con­fes­sion; if they do not man­age to do that, they con­trive to sow tares a­midst the fruits of re­pen­tance and dis­rupt his la­bours of cleans­ing the heart. If they do not suc­ceed in sug­gest­ing evil they at­tempt to dis­tort the truth; if they are re­pulsed in­ward­ly they at­tack out­ward­ly, and so on un­til the end of one’s life. They do not even let one die in peace; even af­ter death they pur­sue the soul, un­til it es­capes the ae­ri­al space where they hov­er and con­gre­gate. You ask, “What should we do? It is hope­less and terrifying!” For a be­liev­er there is noth­ing terrifying here, be­cause near a God-fear­ing man de­mons on­ly busy them­selves, but they do not have any pow­er over him. A so­ber man of prayer shoots ar­rows a­gainst them, and they stay far a­way from him, not dar­ing to ap­proach, and fear­ing the de­feat which they have al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced. If they suc­ceed in some­thing, it is due to our blun­der­ing. We slack­en our at­ten­tion, or al­low our­selves to be dis­tract­ed by their phan­toms, and they im­me­di­ate­ly come and dis­turb us more bold­ly. If you do not come to your sens­es in time they will whirl you a­bout; but if a soul does come to its sens­es they again re­coil and spy from afar to see wheth­er it is pos­si­ble to ap­proach again some­how. So be so­ber, watch, and pray — and the en­e­mies will do noth­ing to you.

Raise your voice

October 14, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Mon­day. [Eph. 1:22-2:3; Mark 10:46-52] The blind man of Jer­i­cho raised up his voice when he learned that the Lord was walk­ing past. His wail reach­ed the Lord; noth­ing sur­round­ing the Lord could in­ter­fere with His hear­ing it, and the Lord call­ed the blind man over and re­turn­ed his sight. At ev­ery time and in ev­ery place the Lord does not just walk by, but is there; He gov­erns the whole world. As hu­man think­ing would have it, this means that He has man­y cares; fur­ther­more, mul­ti­tudes of an­gels sur­round Him with doxologies. But if you are able to raise up your voice like the blind man of Jer­i­cho, noth­ing will stop your wail from reach­ing the Lord; He will hear and ful­fil your pe­ti­tion. It does not de­pend on the Lord; He Him­self is near, and all that is nec­es­sary for you is al­ready pre­pared in Him; now all that is want­ing is you. Man­age to raise up your voice to the mea­sure of the Lord’s hear­ing, and you will im­me­di­ate­ly re­ceive ev­ery­thing. What then is this mea­sure? Faith, hope, de­vo­tion to God’s will. But even these mea­sures have their own mea­sures. What then should these mea­sures be? Ask the one who has pray­ed and re­ceiv­ed what he re­quest­ed; he will say to you: “I pray­ed a­bout this and a­bout that and I re­ceiv­ed ac­cord­ing to my re­quest; now I need this, I have been pray­ing and have not re­ceiv­ed it, and I know why: be­cause I can­not in any way as­cend to that mea­sure of prayer which I had earli­er.” It turns out that it is im­pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine this mea­sure with lit­er­al pre­cise­ness. On­ly one thing is def­i­nite­ly true, that the mat­ter de­pends up­on us, and not on the Lord. As soon as you reach the point where you are ca­pa­ble of ac­cep­tance, you will un­quest­ion­a­bly re­ceive.

Impossible to be without externals

October 7, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Mon­day. [Gal. 4:28-5:10; Mark 6:54-7:8] The Lord re­bukes the Phar­i­sees not for their ex­ter­nal rou­tines and rules of con­duct, but for par­tial­i­ty to­ward them — for lim­it­ing them­selves to ex­ter­nal wor­ship of God, with no con­cern for what was in the heart. It is im­pos­si­ble to be with­out externals. The high­est in­ter­nal things re­quire the ex­ter­nal as their ex­pres­sion and gar­ment. In re­al­i­ty, in­ter­nal things are nev­er alone, but are al­ways u­nit­ed with the out­er; on­ly in false the­o­ries are they sep­a­rated. But again it is ob­vi­ous that externals alone are noth­ing; their worth comes from the pres­ence of the in­ter­nal things contained in them. Thus, once the in­ter­nal ceases to be, the ex­ter­nal might as well not be there. Mean­while, we have a weak­ness for out­ward ap­pear­ances in which the in­ter­nal is de­pict­ed and takes def­i­nite form, to such an ex­tent that we are sat­is­fied with ful­fill­ing them alone, with­out even think­ing that there might be in­ter­nal things. And since the in­ter­nal is harder to at­tain than the ex­ter­nal, it is quite nat­u­ral to get stuck on the lat­ter, not striv­ing for the for­mer. What can we do? We must gov­ern our­selves and keep the in­ter­nal things in mind, al­ways push­ing our­selves to­ward them through the externals, on­ly con­sid­er­ing a work to be re­al when the in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal are u­nit­ed in it. There is no oth­er way. At­ten­tive­ness to­ward one­self, so­ber­ness, and vig­i­lance are the on­ly le­vers for rais­ing up our na­ture which is fat and has a pen­chant for low­ly things. No­tice that those who pos­sess the in­ter­nal nev­er aban­don the ex­ter­nal, though they con­sid­er it to be of no par­tic­u­lar val­ue.

Divinity of the Lord

October 3, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Gal. 3:23-4:5; Mark 6:30-45] And peo­ple ran afoot thith­er out of all cities… and came to­geth­er un­to Him. This is to the Beth­sa­i­da des­ert, where the mar­vel­lous fill­ing of five thou­sand with five loaves of bread and two fish­es was per­form­ed. What drew the peo­ple to the Lord? Sym­pa­thy to­wards the Di­vine. The Di­vin­i­ty of the Lord, hid­den un­der the cov­er of hu­man na­ture, re­veal­ed it­self in word, deed, gaze, and in all that was vis­i­ble in the Lord. The man­i­fes­ta­tions of the God­head awak­en­ed a feel­ing of the God­head hid­den in the heart, and through it drew peo­ple to the Lord. No­bod­y has pow­er to hold back such a move­ment to­ward the Lord, not even the one who feels it, be­cause it is deeper and strong­er than all oth­er move­ments. The same Di­vin­i­ty, ma­ni­fest­ed lat­er by the Sav­iour, drew peo­ple of ev­ery tongue un­der the heav­ens to Him. It has been the same through­out the en­tire his­to­ry of the Church, even to this day. A small trace of the Di­vine draws peo­ple to it­self. What fol­lows from this ex­pe­ri­ence ev­ery­where and at all times of our spir­it’s as­pi­ra­tion for the Di­vine? What fol­lows is that what is Di­vine, what is su­per­nat­u­ral — is the God­head, its source. This as­pi­ra­tion lies in the foun­da­tion of our spir­it and con­sti­tutes its na­ture, as any­one can see from our in­tel­lec­tu­al, aes­thet­ic and prac­ti­cal con­cerns. But in na­ture there can­not be lies and de­cep­tion; con­se­quent­ly they do not ex­ist in this as­pi­ra­tion for the God­head. From this it fol­lows that God and the Di­vine ex­ist, and that the nat­u­ral­ists, in re­ject­ing what is su­per­nat­u­ral, are go­ing a­gainst the na­ture of the hu­man spir­it.

My name is Legion

September 27, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Thurs­day. [Gal. 1:1-10, 20-2:5; Mark 5:1-20] My name is Le­gion: for we are man­y. Spir­its are bodi­less, and there­fore they do not fill or take up space like bodies. This ex­plains why it is phys­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble for man­y spir­its to re­side in one per­son. That it is pos­si­ble mor­al­ly on the part of the spir­its is un­der­standable from their amor­ality, or ab­sence of all mor­al prin­ci­ples; while on the part of the per­son it is un­der­standable from the man­y-sided con­tact of the con­sti­tu­tion of one’s soul with the dis­mal realm of un­clean pow­ers. But this on­ly ex­plains what is pos­si­ble; the re­al­i­ty of de­mon­ic pos­ses­sion is sub­ject to con­di­tions which we do not have the abil­i­ty to de­ter­mine. We can on­ly say that spir­its do not al­ways en­ter in a vis­i­ble way, and it is not al­ways shown through the pos­sessed per­son’s ac­tions. There is an un­seen, hid­den de­mon­ic pos­ses­sion; there is al­so a pow­er of spir­its over minds, a­part from the bod­y, when the de­mons lead them wher­ev­er they wish, through pas­sions work­ing in them. Peo­ple think that they are act­ing them­selves, but they are ac­tu­al­ly the laugh­ing-stocks of un­clean pow­ers. What can we do? Be a true Chris­tian and no en­e­my pow­er shall over­come you.

Breath of Life

September 23, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Mon­day. [II Cor. 12:10-19; Mark 4:10-23 The Lord breathed the breath of life, and man be­came the im­age of God. It is the same with one’s own re­birth: the be­gin­nings of a new life are set down and one’s im­age is re­new­ed by the breath of the Spir­it of God; and whence and how it comes is not known. This is a point of de­par­ture; from here the work be­gins of rais­ing up the im­age to a per­fect like­ness. When we are re­born ac­cord­ing to the im­age of the Cre­a­tor by the Lord’s Spir­it we are trans­fig­ured from glo­ry to glo­ry, but not with­out us, our work and ef­fort; how­ev­er it is God who cre­ates and re­stores us by the grace of the Most Ho­ly Spir­it, ac­cord­ing to faith in the Lord. Be­hold the ide­al and meth­od of ful­fill­ing in one­self the im­age and like­ness of God! Peo­ple so of­ten write a­bout and dis­cuss up­bring­ing. Mean­while, it is all de­ter­mined in the word of God by sev­er­al words. Un­der­take on­ly to ful­fil what is pre­scribed, and up­bring­ing will go on suc­cess­ful­ly to the goal. This is God’s path; but it does not ex­clude hu­man paths — to the con­tra­ry, it gives them di­rec­tion and crowns their suc­cess. When on­ly the hu­man re­mains, up­bring­ing usu­al­ly is in­suf­fi­cient, even det­ri­men­tal, and not rare­ly to­tal­ly per­verts those be­ing raised; then the rest of life goes crook­ed. Where those raised in a crook­ed man­ner mul­ti­ply, all of so­ci­e­ty be­comes more and more crook­ed, both in life and in its at­ti­tudes. The end is uni­ver­sal crook­ed­ness; one bends in one di­rec­tion, then an­oth­er bends in an­oth­er.

Work on yourself

September 17, 2013 | Saint Theophan, Uncategorized

Tues­day. [II Cor. 8:16-9:5; Mark 3:13-19] The Lord chose the a­pos­tles, that they should be with Him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have pow­er to heal sick­ness­es, and to cast out dev­ils. Ev­ery Chris­tian is cho­sen — cho­sen for sim­i­lar deeds, name­ly: to be with the Lord, through un­ceas­ing re­mem­brance of Him and aware­ness of His om­ni­pres­ence, through the preach­ing and ful­fil­ment of His com­mand­ments, and through a read­i­ness to con­fess one’s faith in Him. In those cir­cles where such a con­fes­sion is made, it is a loud ser­mon for all to hear. Ev­ery Chris­tian has the pow­er to heal in­firm­i­ties — not of oth­ers, but his own, and not of the bod­y, but of the soul — that is, sins and sin­ful hab­its — and to cast out dev­ils, re­ject­ing evil thoughts sown by them, and ex­tin­guish­ing the ex­cite­ment of pas­sions en­flamed by them. Do this and you will be an apos­tle, a ful­filler of what the Lord chose you for, an ac­com­plisher of your call­ing as mes­sen­ger. When at first you suc­ceed in all this, then per­haps the Lord will ap­point you as a spe­cial am­bas­sa­dor — to save oth­ers af­ter you have saved your­self; and to help those who are tempt­ed, af­ter you your­self pass through all temp­ta­tions, and through all ex­pe­ri­en­ces in good and evil. But your job is to work up­on your­self: for this you are cho­sen; the rest is in the hands of God. He who hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alt­ed.