John Climacus Archives - Page 2 of 2

Let us Glory in Temptation. Tackle your Fears Head-On

09/26/2017

Let us Glory in Temptation The devil does not have only one weapon. He uses many different means to defeat human beings: now with bribery, now with boredom, now with greed he attacks, inflicting mental and physical wounds equally. The kind of temptation varies with the different kinds of victim. Avarice is the test of the rich, loss of children that of parents and everyone is exposed to pain of mind or body. What a

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent: Three Kinds of Lies & Few Manage to Stem the Gossiping Tongue

04/20/2016

Three Kinds of Lies There are three kinds of liar: those who lie with their thoughts, those who lie with words and those who lie with their very lives. The liar of thought, for example, is the individual who is suspicious. If he sees two people talking, he immediately imagines they are talking about him. If they break off their conversation, he is convinced they are doing so because they have seen him coming. Whatever

The Sixth Monday of Great Lent: Just as Crabs & Idleness Contains All Sin

04/18/2016

Just as Crabs Just as a bundle of green logs suffocates and puts out a bonfire causing clouds of smoke, so excessive grief often surrounds the soul with thick cloud and dries up the fount of tears. Just as a blind person is no use as an archer, so a disciple with the mania of contradiction will end in perdition. Just as tempered metal can sharpen soft or rusty metal, so can a zealous brother

Hesychasm, Sweet Repose

10/23/2015

Hesychasm, a contemplative prayer of rest, has its roots in the desert fathers and mothers as well as the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Bishop Kallistos Ware, drawing from John Climacus (AD 525-606) writes: “The hesychast, in the true sense of the word, is not someone who has journeyed outwardly into the desert, but someone who has embarked upon the journey inwards into his own heart; not someone who cuts himself off physically from others, shutting the

The Fifth Thursday of Great Lent

04/03/2014

The Stomach’s Hypocrisy I doubt if anyone will achieve freedom from gluttony this side of the grave. Gluttony is the hypocrisy of the stomach which complains of being empty when it is well fed, and bellows that it is hungry when it is full almost to bursting. If a person swallows too much food, he is inviting impure thoughts. If he mortifies the stomach, he is creating pure thoughts. Often a lion if it is

Saint John Climacus and the “Ladder of Divine Ascent,” by Metropolitan Philaret

04/12/2013

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. More than once, brethren, the fact has been mentioned that on each Sunday in the Great Fast (i.e., Lent) there are other commemorations besides that of the Resurrection. Thus, on the [Fourth Sunday of Lent], the Church glorifies the righteous John of the Ladder, one of the greatest ascetics, which the Church, in speaking of them, calls “earthly angels and

The Search for the ‘Place of the Heart’: A Life-Giving Discipline

02/22/2013

Our whole spiritual progress is a ‘search for the place of the heart’. Little by little, the conscious self frees itself from idols, strips away the dead layers and illusions, and ‘descends’, like Psyche holding a lighted lamp, into the dark crypt of the heart. Sanctuary, crypt and tomb become the bridal chamber; the ‘heart-spirit’ is remade in the fire of grace, it trembles with joy, it bursts into flames, the world and humanity are

Persons in Communion: From Individual to Person (Part I)

09/26/2012

The Body of Christ is not only unity but interchange, by which the ‘movement of love’ of the Trinity is conveyed to humankind. This movement, in which each effaces himself in order to give, is the transition from individual to person, a growing to maturity certainly, but only achieved by means of a succession of death-and-resurrections, in the course of which we are stripped down and recreated. We become unique, escape the repetitive character of

Archive

Let us Glory in Temptation. Tackle your Fears Head-On

The Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent: Three Kinds of Lies & Few Manage to Stem the Gossiping Tongue

The Sixth Monday of Great Lent: Just as Crabs & Idleness Contains All Sin

Hesychasm, Sweet Repose

The Fifth Thursday of Great Lent

Saint John Climacus and the “Ladder of Divine Ascent,” by Metropolitan Philaret

The Search for the ‘Place of the Heart’: A Life-Giving Discipline

Persons in Communion: From Individual to Person (Part I)

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