It is helpful to observe that repentance through compassion is perhaps nowhere more available to us than in our mediated relationships with society. Living in the world, we are surrounded constantly by stories of awful vice and sin, found in the news, on the web, told through friends and the like. Our usual instinct, which is one strongly encouraged in the secular world, is to sit in judgment of the wrongs we hear about on
Silence and Purity of Heart The disciples of Abba Pachomius learned that silence is not simply the absence of sound. It is a unique form of human consciousness. In the silence of their teacher they were drawn beyond themselves into a transpersonal form of listening, seeing and learning. They witnessed the presence of God in Pachomius in such a way that the judgments of their egos were released. They were lured beyond the boundaries of
Because we are exploring life in society as a web of relationships, it is important to establish from the outset a picture of what the fathers of the Conferences thought relationships should be like for Christians. No matter how deep into the desert they went, none of the fathers was under any illusion that a human being can live free from relationships with others. What is more, the fathers did not consider a life of
We conclude by presenting some assurance that what we are seeking to do as lay people—namely, to pursue purity of heart—really can be done through life in the world. We require such an assurance simply because life in the world can often seem terribly ill-suited to the pursuit of our goal and telos. For instance, we may ask, how is one to develop discretion and discernment in a world full of false teachers pulling us
As a result of the inherent differences between individuals within the Church, the fathers of the Conferences teach that individual Christians must acknowledge and seize the particular spiritual opportunities that are present to them. Abba Paphnutius notes that it would be strange if things were any other way. Your objection would be on target if every work or discipline had only a beginning and an end, with no middle between them. Yet, we know that
Balance, we have already noted, can only be attained through discretion and discernment. Yet, there is another key virtue that the monk must seek if he is going to walk the royal road according to the Conferences. This is the fifth and final virtue on our list, namely, humility, which, according to Abba Moses, is the foundational virtue lying beneath a Christian’s ability to practice discernment and discretion and thus, by extension, to live a
So, what do the terms “purity of heart” and “kingdom of God” mean? We begin with purity of heart. Abba Moses speaks at quite some length about what it is, as well as what it is not. First, we will look at what Abba Moses says about purity of heart in positive terms-what he says about what it actively is. Abba Moses connects purity of heart to a variety of other terms and concepts that
But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. Romans 6:22 The Goal and Telos of Christian Life We noted that Christian salvation is fundamentally the same, whether pursued in the world or through monasticism. It is this foundational unity, which is the unity of the Holy Spirit himself, that makes monastic spirituality and literature so valuable for the
How the Resurrected Bodies will be Transformed at the Second Coming of Jesus, by Saint Symeon the New Theologian This is the revelation received by Saint Symeon the New Theologian from God while in ecstasy. It reveals to us how our material bodies will be transformed and become incorruptible at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. “One day, while I was praying to God with purity of heart, a breeze came upon me and
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