SURPRISED BY JOY: The Doctrine of Joy in the Works of Nikitas Stithatos

Philokalia, vol. 4, On the Inner Nature of Things and on the Purification of the Intellect

Dispersed through the austere examples of ascetic practice in Stithatos’ texts, there are abundant references to bright and even ecstatic joy.

Stithatos puts a special emphasis on joy, viewing it not as a fleeting emotion but as a profound, consistent spiritual state and one of the essential “fruits of the Holy Spirit.”

He describes several types of joy. For example:

The joy that stems from the practice of virtues: “When our intelligence is perfected through the practice of the virtues and is elevated through the knowledge and wisdom of the Spirit and by the divine fire, it is assimilated to these heavenly powers through the gifts of God, as by virtue of its purity it draws towards itself the particular characteristic of each of them.”

The joy of dispassion and unity. Shedding our attachments to the material world and its passions is the most essential step in the achievement of theosis. Additionally, Nikitas Stithatos describes a mystical, spiritual reality where the “world above” (the heavenly or noetic realm) awaits its completion and perfection through the spiritual attainment of human beings in the “lower world” (the physical, material world). Instead of being at war with, or separated from, “the world above,” we view it “as yet incomplete.” We understand that the world “awaits its fulfilment from the first-born of Israel…” but we also understand our role in this fulfillment which comes “from those who see God,” and “it receives its completion from those who attain the knowledge of God.”

Joy found in the liturgical experience and hierarchical, and liturgical account of the nine heavenly powers.

“The nine heavenly powers sing hymns of praise that have a threefold structure, as they stand in threefold rank before the Trinity, in awe celebrating their liturgy and glorifying God. Those who come first – immediately below Him who is the Source and Cause of all things and from whom they take their origin – are the initiators of the hymns and are named thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim.”

Theosis: The ultimate joy of inner peace. Joy is an “ineffable” and “incomprehensive happiness” that comes from detachment from worldly passions and the ensuing union with God. This is a core part of the final stage of spiritual life (theosis or deification).

The desire to experience the “joy and sweetness of His presence” is presented as a driving force for achieving inner stillness, emphasizing that despondency is incompatible with the love of God. This state represents the culmination of the spiritual journey.

For those who with the support of the Spirit have entered the fullness of contemplation, a chalice of wine is made ready, and bread from a royal banquet is set before them. A throne is prepared for their repose and silver for their wealth.

The joy of hope. Even if we do not experience a state of theosis in this life, we should be comforted by the knowledge that the Kingdom of Heaven will open for us after death. Stithatos enters details of the actual physical process of dying and advises us to learn we should ask that our departure from this life may take place without fear.

In summary, for Stithatos, joy is a central, essential element of the mature spiritual life, signifying the soul’s harmonious dwelling in God’s presence.

BECOMING A TREE OF LIFE: Nikitas Stithatos

Philokalia, vol. 4, On the Inner Nature of Things and on the Purification of the Intellect:

Nikitas Stithatos paints a lyrical image of the state of theosis, that is, union with God:

“When you have reached this state, you enter the peace of the Spirit that transcends every dauntless intellect (cf.Phil. 4 : 7) and through love you are united to God.”

Getting there, however, is not a linear path.

Pride for your spiritual achievements, for example, often creeps in, disrupting contemplation. The tranquility you achieved is shaken as you slip back into wanting to control, draw conclusions and make presumptions on your own. Such self-centered state of mind prevents you from seeing the inner nature of all things through God’s eyes.

Stithatos makes clear that nothing remains static in this process of spiritual ascendance, including the role of the penitent.

“God does not want us always to be humiliated by the passions and to be hunted down by them like hares, making Him alone our rock and refuge (cf. Ps. 1 04 : 1 8);”

God, then, wants us to be in a cooperative relationship with him.

Accordingly, simply resisting the passions is not enough for salvation. Nikitas Stithatos’s emphasis is on the transformation of passions into virtuous energies (rather than their mere annihilation).

To better illustrate this point, he brings up the metaphor of a deer eating snakes (don’t look for scientific evidence here).

“But He wants us to run as deer on the high mountains of His commandments (cf. Ps. 1 04 : 1 8. LXX), thirsting for the life creating waters of the Spirit ( cf. Ps. 42 : 1 ). For, they say, it is the deer’s nature to eat snakes; but by virtue of the heat they generate through being always on the move, they strangely transform the snakes’ poison into musk and it does them no harm. In a similar manner, when passion-imbued thoughts invade our mind, we should bring them into subjection through our ardent pursuit of God’s commandments and the power of the Spirit, and so transform them into the fragrant and salutary practice of virtue. In this way we can take every thought captive and make it obey Christ ( cf. 2 Cor. 1 o : 5).”

The spiritual application follows the deer analogy:

The Process of Transformation given by Stithatos

Invasion of Thoughts: “Passion-imbued thoughts” will inevitably enter the mind [1]. The goal is not necessarily to avoid these thoughts entirely, but to actively confront them.
Active Subjection: Through “ardent pursuit of God’s commandments and the power of the Spirit,” the negative thoughts are engaged and brought “into subjection” [1].
Spiritual Alchemy: The “poison” of the passion is not just neutralized; it is “transformed them into the fragrant and salutary practice of virtue” [1]. The energy of the passion, when channeled correctly through spiritual discipline, becomes something positive and holy (musk).

Free will, then, is not passive but has agency of its own to discern, edit, re-direct and transform.

This “dynamic path” is a key feature of the broader Eastern Orthodox concept of theosis, which involves a synergistic process of human effort and divine grace.

The state of passivity or action, surface or depth depends on the level of engagement we have with God.

Simply disciplining the body is not sufficient for achieving theosis. It is literal and one-dimensional. Yet, “we are meant for more than we can literally imagine,” writes Stithatos. Remaining on the surface–Christians in name only– means that we are simply treading water and we will experience no progress:

“A person who keeps turning round and round on the same spot and does not want to make any spiritual progress is like a mule that walks round and round a well-head operating a water-wheel.”

Becoming one with God in every way is not achieved simply by adhering to technical details.

In the book, Everywhere Present, by Stephen Freeman, the central metaphor is the contrast between a “two-storey” and a “one-storey” universe. The “two-storey” view, which Freeman argues is the prevailing mindset in secular society, relegates God and all spiritual matters to an unreachable “upstairs” realm. This effectively banishes God from everyday existence, making faith a distant, theoretical concept. The “one-storey universe,” in contrast, recognizes that God is “everywhere present and filling all things” in the here and now.

This metaphor bears similarity to Stithatos’ contrast between passivity and total engagement, running in circles and ascending upwards.

Freeman’s book advocates for a faith that changes how one perceives and interacts with the entire world and sees God’s presence in all things.

Stithatos’ path to theosis is similarly a transformative process by which a veil is lifted, and we can suddenly see the world around us with new eyes. We are able to discern God’s presence under the surface of even the most insignificant things and, hence, comprehend their true essence.

But true devotion of soul attained through the spiritual knowledge of created things and of their immortal essences is as a tree of life within the spiritual activity of the intellect

WHO AM I?

Nikitas Stithatos

Philokalia, vol. 4, On the Inner Nature of Things and on the
Purification of the Intellect:
One Hundred Texts

Who am I when no one is watching? When I’m not striving for success, frantically checking items off to-do-lists, or managing the impression I make on others? What remains of me if I lose my job, professional status, perfect performance of tasks or others’ admiration?

Suppose you are successful at your work, have received promotions, met important people and were awarded several awards. Suppose also that you have failed to complete projects you started, and you were fired once. Consider finally where, in your perception of your successes, you place your daily virtues, such as loving and nurturing your children or your willingness to sacrifice yourself for others.

Most of us, consciously or unconsciously, construct a “public self” that highlights our successes, skips the failures and discounts the everyday virtues and domestic joys that we believe are not spectacular enough to impress.

Our self-presentation often conceals perceived shortcomings or simple pleasures that we don’t believe would be recognized as accomplishments by others.

Such presentation of ourselves leaves in the shadows supposed failures or ordinary virtues and joys we don’t believe others see as accomplishments, creating an internal friction between the self we present and the one we possess.

Curating a version of ourselves based on what we believe others value is exhausting. Yet most of the time we are hardly aware of the editing process we automatically undertake. This is because we are convinced that our story for ourselves is true. The constant work of hiding the discarded parts of our identity, however, breeds a profound, anxious disconnect.

Nikitas Stithatos emphasizes the importance and, indeed, necessity of knowing ourselves.

“To know oneself is the goal of the practice of virtues.” Nikitas Stithatos tells us.

True knowledge of ourselves will free us from our “addiction to success, ”(as Arthur C. Brooks calls it, in his book From Strength to Strength), and from the burden of constantly curating our persona so that it elicits the maximum praise and admiration.

Knowledge of our true self can only be achieved through humility. Conversely, humility can be only achieved and maintained by cutting through delusions and cravings for admiration and understanding who we really are.

For if you do not yet know yourself you cannot know what humility is and have not yet embarked truly on the task of cultivating and guarding. To know oneself is the goal of the practice of virtues.

The more we recognize our weakness, the stronger we will be in spiritual warfare and the freer we will feel from our attachment to the stories we construct for ourselves.

We live authentically when we stop being driven by the quest for others’ approval and seek, instead, an understanding of who God, and not man, wants us to be.

One way to judge our ability to live authentic lives in humility is by examining the “fruits” of our labor, not just our own rhetoric and conclusions. Our claim of satisfaction and success, for example, seems hollow when we feel discontent, spend sleepless nights agonizing, miss out on things we claim are important or look at the future with fear and dread.

Stithatos is clear about the true fruits of the Holy Spirit and those that uncover “vanity and pretentiousness of soul.”

The fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, goodness, long-suffering, kindness, faith, gentleness, self-control ( cf. Gal.5″ : 2 2-23). The fruits of the spirit of evil are hatred, worldly despondency, restlessness of soul, a troubled heart, guile, inquisitiveness, negligence, anger, lack of faith, envy, gluttony, drunkenness, abusiveness, censoriousness, the lust of the eyes (cf. 1 John 2 : 1 6), vanity and pretentiousness of soul. By these fruits you may know the tree (cf. Matt. 1 2 : 3 3), and in this way you will certainly recognize what kind of spirit you have to deal with…

God looks not at the outward form of what we say or do, but at the disposition of our soul and the purpose for which we perform a visible action or express a thought. In the same way those of greater understanding than others look rather to the inward meaning of words and the intention of actions, and unfalteringly assess them accordingly.

“Man looks at the outward form, but God looks on the heart,” Stithatos points out and quotes cf. I Sam.I 6 ; 7.

We need to focus on cultivating the heart, building lives of inner contentment, love and faith rather than those of achievements and external admiration.

The Relevance of Relentless Ambition

On the Inner Nature of Things and on the
Purification of the Intellect:
One Hundred Texts

Love for God begins with detachment from things human and visible. Purification of heart and intellect marks the intermediate stage, for through such purification the eye of the intellect is spiritually unveiled and we attain knowledge of the kingdom of heaven hidden within us (cf. Luke 1 7 : 2 1 ).

Nikitas Stithatos

If I read this paragraph to my non-believing family members and friends, they would laugh it off and consider terms such as “detachment” and “purification” as irrelevant to our age and fit only for medieval monks.

Yet slavery of the soul, despair, emptiness and the secret longing for inner peace are especially relevant to us today, though the terms we use may sound different. Our attachment to praise, success, prestige, and material goods that drives us results in exhaustion, disappointment and a sense of emptiness. We can only achieve contentment and inner peace by detaching ourselves from this treadmill that keeps running in place.

Arthur C. Brooks, in his book From Strength to Strength: Finding success, happiness and deep purpose in the second half of life, demonstrates just how relevant the need for detachment and purification is for our age. He believes that most of us are success addicts, relentlessly pursuing prestige, admiration, achievements, recognition, material goods and the like, at the expense of connections with family and friends and personal satisfaction.

On the basis of many interviews, he concludes that, despite our exhaustion and the high price we pay for success, we cannot give up its pursuit for fear of succumbing to a dull, boring, undistinguished life.

“…People who choose being special rather than happy are addicts,” he concludes. What workaholics truly crave is not work itself; it is success. They kill themselves working for money, power and prestige because they are forms of approval, power, applause and compliments. The success addict is never “successful enough.” The “high only lasts a day or two, and then it’s on to the next success hit.”

Nikitas Stithatos calls a life in pursuit of material things “carnal life:”

The carnal mode of life is one wholly devoted to the pleasures and enjoyments of this present life and has nothing to do with the psychic and spiritual modes of life and does not even have any wish to acquire them.

He describes those caught in vain, material pursuits as striving:

…only for what is visible and corruptible, on this account fighting among themselves and even sacrificing their lives for such things, avid for wealth, glory and the pleasures of the flesh, and regarding the lack of any of these things as a disaster.

Unless we detach ourselves from the carnal way of life, we will be unable to see the true essence of things in the light of God and unite with Him.

Both Stithatos and Brooks point to pride as the culprit. Here Brooks quotes St. Augustine:

Every other kind of sin has to do with the commission of evil deeds, whereas pride lurks even in good works in order to destroy them.”

Brooks concludes:

So true-work, which is a source of meaning and purpose, becomes workaholism, which hurts our relationships. Success, the fruit of excellence, becomes an addiction. All because of pride.

This addiction becomes especially painful as we age, Arthus C.Brooks concludes. This is the time when our abilities decline, our “wins” decrease and we are increasingly marginal to those we admire and emulate. Yet, unless we detach from the pursuit of “things human and visible,” and radically change our value compass, we will continue running in place on a treadmill.

This is when many of us realize that we have created a trap for ourselves, he continues, which makes it difficult to reframe ourselves in the second half of our life and find contentment…The point is that the symbols of your specialness have encrusted you like a ton of barnacles.

Many of us are fearful when trying to envision the future.

“A cousin of pride is fear,” Brooks observes– fear of normal life with its struggles, humiliations, boredom and obscurity.

So who are we and who will we become when deprived of titles, workplace routines, affiliations, recognition, habits, or continuing praise? Both Brooks and Stithatos point to detachment—chipping away of your attachments—as the most decisive step to finding your true self, as God intended it.

Brooks advises:

If you want to be happy, you have to state your honest aspiration to be happy, to be willing to be a little less special in worldly terms. You must state your desire to lighten your load with pride’s opposite virtue: humility.

Stithatos goes beyond contentment to show the incomprehensive happiness of the union with God that your detachment has enabled.

Instead of longing for success and material goods, our souls are now consumed by “an irrepressible longing for the supranatural gifts of God and in a natural desire for union with God and for finding one’s abode in Him…. Where there is intense longing for God, noetic labour, and participation in the unapproachable light, there too the soul’s powers will be at peace, the intellect will be purified, and the Holy Trinity will dwell within us; for it is written, ‘He who loves Me will fulfil My teaching, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and take up Our abode in him’ (John 14 : 23).”

Obstacles to Inner Stillness: Comparing Ourselves to Others

N I KITAS STITHATOS, On the Practice of the Virtues: One Hundred Texts

“Those who have passed the mid-point of the first stage of the spiritual path, and who have attained the triad of mystical theology”, Stithatos writes, “engage in a triad of virtues: freedom from passions, purity of intellect that arises from prayer and tears,” and “the indwelling of the Holy Trinity within us.”

A major obstacle to the exercise of virtues is preoccupation with others’ lives and comparisons with them.

This seems to be especially relatable to us in the 21st century.

Don’t most of us lose ourselves through constant comparisons to others? Our achievements are not as satisfactory if we don’t compare them to those less fortunate and congratulate ourselves on our superiority. Or, despite achievements and gifts in our lives, “(we are) engulfed in a slew of despondency” as we feel inadequate compared to others. We cannot find peace in stillness because we feel guilty NOT being engaged in achieving what is considered praiseworthy or performing tasks others deem productive in the pursuit of success. Stillness frighten us less we fall behind or miss out.

“He who in any way compares himself with his fellow ascetics or with the brethren who live with him, Stithatos writes, ” is unaware that he deceives himself and treads a path alien to God. Either he does not know himself or he has deviated from the path that leads heavenwards. But by following this path in modesty of mind, those more spiritually advanced surmount the devil’s ploys and, winged by dispassion and adorned with humility, they attain the heights of spiritual illumination.”

Derailment from the path to God occurs when we base our perception of reality on our own presumptions and not on God’s guidance.

84. If you are puffed up and full of presumption you will never be illumined by compunction or attain the grace of humility. It is through this that the light of God’s wisdom is bestowed on those with contrite hearts, in accordance with the words, ‘In Thy light shall we see light’ (Ps. 36 : 9). 85″. …For the man who lives as most men, prompted by the spirit of presumption, this present life becomes a sea embroiled by the powers of evil…

To escape from the delusion of our own presumptions, we need to return to a God-centered perspective. This requires restraint, self-control and a rigorous denunciation of our own presumptions.

The reorientation from personal presumptions to “the light of God’s wisdom” that he asks us to make is quite radical. We should shift from observing the actions and achievements of others to focusing on understanding the underlying nature of things and discerning the presence of God in them. We are to journey beyond what we see to experience God’s purpose and beauty beneath the surface of even the most mundane objects. This view of the true nature of things brings inner peace.

Bringing inner stillness to their thoughts, this dispassion raises them to a state of intellectual peace, making their intellect visionary and prophetic to the highest degree. (90). When you approach the frontiers of dispassion – attaining a right view of God and the nature of things, and according to your growth in purity ascending to the Creator through the beauty of His creatures – you will be illumined by the Holy Spirit.

Stithatos’s description of a state of tranquility and unity with God is lyrical:

“…you will dwell in the divine realm of God’s blessed glory, all your senses transformed, and at the same time you will live spiritually among men like an angel in a material body.

Yet he warns us of the danger of the demons ready to pounce on us and destroy our stillness with thoughts of lust, superiority, indignation, bitterness, anger or hopelessness. Stillness implies harmony with God’s creation and a state of intellectual peace.

A dispassionate intellect is one that has gained control over its own passions and risen above both dejection and joy. It is neither subject to bouts of depression nor ebullient with high spirits, but is joyful in affiiction, restrained when cheerful, and temperate in all things.

Let’s not deceive ourselves. No matter how deeply we repent and how strictly we follow ascetic principles, the temptation to react passionately is a sign of re-emerging passions.

A good spring does not produce turbid, foul-smelling water, redolent of worldly matter; nor can a heart that is outside the kingdom

Yet, there is hope in our mastery of spiritual warfare.

If you have embarked on the task of despoiling the hostile spirits through the practice of the virtues, see that you are thoroughly armed with the weapons of the Spirit. Are you aware of who it is you want to despoil?

St. Basil of Caesarea:How to Live a Life of Gratitude

From his homily “On the Martyr Julitta (and on Giving Thanks) in the book On Fasting and Feasts

Is it possible to be always grateful, and “give thanks in all circumstances’’ even in the face of pain, loss and even death?

St. Basil’s answer is a resounding yes. A constant state of gratitude is in fact our path to salvation and union with God. He begins this homily with a tribute to St. Julitta.

St. Julitta, we are told, had a lawsuit against a powerful and greedy man who had robbed her of her considerable property. Because of a corrupt court that sided with her opponent, St. Julitta lost the lawsuit. Yet St. Basil declares her the real winner of this case as the spiritual battle she waged was far more important than the loss of physical property.

On the material level, St. Julitta stood her ground during the trial and refused to be intimidated by her opponent and the biased judge. She eloquently presented her case and brought tangible and undeniable evidence of the violence and injustice done to her. Yet the court ordered that the young woman would not only lose her property but also her very life because she boldly refuted the false claims and refused to renounce Christ.

Instead of despairing, however, St. Julitta embraced her legal defeat as a spiritual victory and an opportunity for salvation. Instead of cowering in fear, she eagerly and joyfully jumped into the flames of the fire that was to burn her alive.

This is why St. Basil concludes that, while she has a woman’s body, she has the courage and spirit of a man. He means that her moral strength and courage had defied any biological or cultural category and rendered hollow the decisions of legal authorities.

Why is Basil using Julitta’s story as the jumping point to a homily of gratitude?

In a life of continuous prayer, he says, you “do everything for the glory of God.” This means that everything—pleasant or unpleasant, satisfactory or painful, expected or unexpected—can be a window to the glory of God and a vehicle for experiencing it. St. Julitta discerned God’s glory in the pain of her martyrdom.

Everything contains a pointer to God’s glory and, hence, can become a source of gratitude, he tells us.

“But the Apostle says: ‘Give thanks in all circumstances.’ ”

Yet St. Basil asks the question most of us would ask: How is it possible to maintain gratitude in the face of soul-crushing circumstances, untold acts of violence, loss and deprivation?

It is a difficult task to convince a widow or mother of a dead child that even when finding themselves in such circumstances, they can dig deeper, beyond the pain, and still perceive the glory of God and believe in His purpose.

He proceeds gently but steadily.

First, there is an implicit distinction in his homily between grief and despair. In Orthodox Christianity one faces grief head-on, without sugar-coating it or suppressing it, yet without being subsumed by it. One example is the lamentations of the Virgin in the Holy Friday hymnology which, following the secular oral poetic traditions, freely express pain, disbelief and even anger toward the departed.

The Church doesn’t hurry past the passion of Christ to the Resurrection. It celebrates each day or even hour of his passion, it lingers on every wound and humiliation suffered by Christ, and allows us to experience the physicality of pain. In the same vein, the hymnology of funeral services also faces openly and directly the physical toll of death on the departed and the deep pain of the mourners.

Grief, however, does not relinquish hope, as despair does. Unlike despair, it does not explode into anger, bitterness and hatred, all of which would prevent comfort, reconciliation and even gratitude.

Secondly, the key to gratitude is acceptance of God’s will and freedom from your own set expectations. This means renunciation of control over your and others’ lives.

In today’s business terms, willingness to abandon set plans and expectations and openness to embracing a radically new direction, is called “pivoting.” The leadership of an organization, for example, recognizes that their original plan is not bringing desired results. Instead of clinging to their initial expectations and plans, they “pivot”—reframe their position and value proposition and dramatically change strategy and direction.

Acceptance is clearly not passivity. St. Julitta fought a hard fight against the injustice done to her. Yet, accepting that the result was not within her control, she transformed defeat into victory.

“Why not let ourselves yield entirely to the action of such a wise master rather than complaining when we are robbed as if it is our property, and pitying the dead as if they have suffered some great disaster” rather then being “returned” to God, St. Basil asks.

Acceptance and freedom from your own script for life bring about inner peace and the defeat of fear.

“Proceed with this principle as a guide for your soul , a guard over every thought , so that you cannot be shaken by what happens in life; instead, your mind will be like a rock in the sea, one that endures the wind and waves without moving.”

This is what St. Julitta did and why her example prefaces a homily on living a life of perpetual gratitude.

But let us not grieve for what we do not have. Let us learn to give thanks for the present…

St. Basil of Caesarea: Meditation on the Birth of Christ

St. Basil was an early Christian cleric who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia for 8 years, until his death (370-378).

He is one of the pillars of Orthodox theology, known for his support of the Nicene Creed and his battles against the heresies of the time. He was an influential theologian, renowned for his ideas, writings and preaching. Of the homilies he delivered, only about 50 survive today, including his Homily on the Holy Birth of Christ.

In addition to his work as a theologian, Basil was known for his care of the poor and powerless.

St. Basil begins this homily by yanking us out of our comfort zone—our iron-clad habits, beliefs, assumptions and patterns of thinking. Before he even mentions the birth of Christ, he warns us that we are incapable of understanding it solely based on our limited, human thinking.

Our first step toward understanding is humility–accepting that the concept of the birth of Christ is “incomprehensible” to humans. It exists beyond the confines of our human experiences, logic and verbal expressions. Christ’s birth, he tells us, is a mystery and, hence, it cannot be captured through words. Terms such as “eternal” or “ineffable birth” are woefully inadequate to capture the essence of that miracle.

In a way, we must detach from all that we take for granted, and approach the holy birth naked and child-like.

St. Basil asks us to forget all rules of cause-and-effect relationships, synthesis and antithesis.

He uses the metaphor of iron and fire to explain how limited linear oppositions are. While iron is cold and fire is hot, he tells us, iron becomes hot when put in the fire, taking on the outwards characteristics of fire.

“The iron glows in the fire, yet the fire is not blackened. The iron is set ablaze, yet it does not cool the flame.”

“Are you puzzled,” he then asks, “how the easily corruptible nature can have incorruptibility through its communion with God? Realize that it’s a mystery. God is in flesh so that he may kill the death that lurks therein.”

St. Basil continues with a catalogue of concepts that are accepted as truth by the church, even though they appear to be impossible within the laws of nature. He lists, and argues for, foundational beliefs about Christ’s birth that, at the time, were challenged by various heresies. For example, the virgin birth, Mary’s eternal virginity that continues after the birth, and the nature of the pregnancy, that is that Christ was placed in the womb fully formed—“perfect”—without undergoing the stages of development from fertilized egg to a fully formed child.

The basis of his arguments was the impossibility to understand a mystery with tools that pertain to the physical world.

St. Basil displays enormous mastery of science, theology and history. He rejects the notion that astrology explains the rising of the star as this implies that “each person’s life is caused by a particular configuration of the stars.”

St. Basil sees the birth of Christ as causing a cosmic shift in the world by freeing from the grips of pagan rules and worldview which dominated thought and culture.

Having warned us of the inadequacy of human thought and expression to grasp the mystery of the birth of Christ, St. Basil shows that spiritual understanding is not merely intellectual but experiential. One arrives at it through participation in, rather than descriptions of, the mystery. An outstanding writer, St. Basil ends the chapter with lyrical accounts of his immersion in the mystery itself:

Let us celebrate the salvation of the world, the birthday of humanity.

My heart is alive and well, and my mind is overflowing, but the tongue is deficient and words insufficient to proclaim such great glory.

For the divine power has been manifested through the human body as light through vitreous membranes, and shines upon those who have the eyes of their hearts purified. May we also be found among them , with “unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord” so that we too can be transformed “from glory to glory” by the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and his love of humanity.

On Faith, Hope and Love, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step #30

“All that remains,” the last chapter begins, “is the triad of faith, hope and love to be fully united to God.”

At the 30^th and last step of the ladder, we have finally arrived at the summit: theosis or union with God.

When I was younger, I would have expected something rare and powerful at the very top of the Ladder. Infinite wisdom, perhaps; eternal life on earth, immediate sainthood, power over others, miracle-granting authority! Extraordinarily, at the very top of the Ladder is a triad of virtues, with the highest among them being love. Instead of magic powers, we achieve a spiritual state that, though hard, is possible to be achieved by all.

The purpose of all the battles against passions and the cultivation of virtues along our long ascent on the ladder was to finally experience love in its fullness. Since God is love, we become one with Him.

To understand the concept of love in the writings of the desert fathers, we must banish our associations with romantic love or obsessive passion. Christian love is not selective or conditional. It does not ebb and flow with circumstances or mood. Having shed our passions through our ascendance on the ladder, we are free from the blindness of personal agendas, resentments, jealousies, recrimination, desire to control and all the other passions that separate us from God. We are now able to see the image of God in others, regardless of their behavior, flaws, circumstances or mood.

Having achieved the ability to love fully we have not simply acquired a virtue, but become transformed in God’s image:

Love is by its nature resemblance of God, insofar as this is humanly possible.

Achieving theosis is a state beyond words or actions, a true “inebriation of the soul.” When your heart is filled with love, it transforms the way you see and experience the world.

Love grants prophecy, miracles. It is an abyss of illumination, a fountain of fire, bubbling up to inflame the thirsty soul. It is the condition of angels and the progress of eternity. You cannot love God and hate your neighbor because you now see God in him.

You experience love’s “distinctive character,” and thus become “a fountain of faith, an abyss of patience, a sea of humility.” Fear disappears when love consumes you.

Fear shows up when love departs. Lack of fear means that you are either filled with love or dead in spirit, John observes.

A metaphor often used to communicate the intensity of our love for God is that of a person deeply in love. Just as someone besought with erotic love can think of nothing but the object of that love, those who ascend to the top of the ladder are so consumed by divine love that they may forget to eat and are unaware of physical needs.

Yet unlike bodily passions love of God is not uncontrollable, suffocating and destructive. It does not obliterate our identity and sense of self. Christ gave up his life out of love but retained his personhood. Instead of consuming and destroying, love of God transforms.

Hope is the power behind love. When hope goes, so does love. “Hope comes from the experience of the Lord’s gifts, and someone with no such experience must be ever in doubt.” Hope is destroyed by anger.

John’s last admonition is also a glorification:

We are here at the summit,” he reminds us. “Let the ladder teach us the spiritual unity of these virtues so the “grossness of the flesh” will not hold us back. And the chapter ends with an unequivocal declaration.

Remaining now are faith, hope and love, these three. But love is the greatest of them all.” (1 Cor. 13:13)

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: On Prayer (step 28)

“Prayer,” John tells us in the beginning of this chapter, “is future gladness, action without end, wellspring of virtues, source of grace, hidden progress, food of the soul, enlightenment of the mind, an axe against despair, hope demonstrated, sorrow done away with.” This stream of lyrical metaphors establishes an important theme: prayer is not a discrete act, strictly confined to a specific place and time. It is nourishment to our souls; the personal experience of God’s presence which can dwell ceaselessly within us.

John leads us to gradually deeper stages of prayer from simply keeping physical prayer routines to transforming your entire life into ceaseless prayer.

The first step is to prepare for prayer through purification:

The beginning of prayer is the expulsion of distractions from the very start by a single thought.

Prayer is tarnished when we stand before God, our minds seething with irrelevancies. It disappears when we are led off into useless cares. (p.277)

Distractions from mundane cares and seething passions are likened to imprisonment, keeping us from the shining freedom achieved through prayer.

If you are clothed in gentleness and in freedom from anger, you will find it no trouble to free your mind from captivity (p. 276)

Simplicity and submission are the antidotes to distraction: “Pray in all simplicity,” John tells us. ”Avoid talkativeness lest your search for just the right words distracts you.” In fact, “when a man has found the Lord, he no longer has to use words when he is praying …”

You truly pray when you ask for understanding of His and submerge your ego to it. “While we are still in prison, let us listen to him who told Peter to put on the garment of obedience, to shed his own wishes and, having been stripped of them, to come close to the Lord in prayer, seeking only His will.

The Fire that Resurrects Prayer

It is easy to forget that prayer is a gate to the presence of God and begin to see our daily prayer rituals as chores or even disruptions to our busy lives. John reminds us that prayer is not an opportunity to make requests but a reward unto itself as a vehicle for uniting with God.

“What have I longed on earth besides you? Nothing except to cling always to you in undistracted prayer!”

The stage of unity of God is not one of passive submission but of spiritual transformation. John uses the metaphor of fire to describe it: “When fire comes to dwell in the heart,” he says, “it resurrects prayer.”

Such an ecstatic state is not achieved on demand. We live in a time when service or information on demand, anytime, anywhere, is considered our birthright and the natural course of events. Yet, reaching this mystical, prayerful state cannot be achieved through our own efforts and at our chosen time, but only through God’s Grace. This is why when, by God’s Grace, our souls are suddenly gifted with a moment of true prayer, we must not let anything interfere with it. “Do not stop praying as long as, by God’s grace, the fire and the water have not been exhausted (as long as fervor and tears remain), for it may happen that never again in your whole life will you have such a chance to ask for the forgiveness of your sins.”

One of the greatest dangers in our time is to look for shortcuts to ecstatic communion with God, replacing the fire of God’s presence in prayer with the superficial “high” of excess or addiction—whether it is drugs, extreme sports, workaholism or other compulsion. The danger for us, practicing Christians, is to transfer this attitude to our prayer life, seeking “highs” in our prayer and worship experiences and judging their quality of the basis of the emotions we believe we should be feeling. Forcing the emotions we think we should be feeling in worship and judging rather than submitting to prayer and worship—leads some to constantly “shop” around for churches or for rapturous worship experiences which, ironically, does not give them the inner stillness needed to truly pray.

We shouldn’t confuse the fire that is stoked by the labor of ascending the Ladder and emptying ourselves from passions, with artificially induced emotions. The fire that comes to dwell in the heart and engenders true prayer is achieved through the Grace of God rather than our will and through spiritual warfare. Above all it transforms rather than to simply excite or entertain us.

Prayer as Transformation

John places a great deal of weight on the transformative role of prayer. He considers those who emerge from prayer without having experienced [illumination, joy or peace] to have prayed bodily rather than spiritually. “A body changes in its activity as a result of contact with another body. How therefore could there be no change in someone who with innocent hands has touched the Body of God?”

John, however, is a pragmatist and wants us to at least adhere to the discipline of prayer routines, even when our hearts are closed and are not participating in the prayer. Committing to these routines eventually allows our hearts to follow our bodies.

For those who have achieved the higher level of true prayer, prayer is no longer a distinct activity but a continuous spiritual state.

John tells us that we should aspire to this state of continuous prayers. In is living life as prayer than our lives are transformed. We experience life—even its most insignificant moments or mundane elements —as “as sacrament” (as Schmemann puts it). Life is lived as whole; there is separation between sacred and secular; worldly and prayer life. We may have a set time for prayer, but we are already prepared for it by “unceasing prayer in [the] soul.”

THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT BY JOHN CLIMACUS: The Things that Deaden our Soul

The conventional understanding of “sin” is that of transgression of very concrete rules and laws.

This is how Wikipedia defines it:

Among some scholars, sin is understood mostly as legal infraction or contract violation of non-binding philosophical frameworks and perspectives of Christian ethics, and so salvation tends to be viewed in legal terms.

It continues with the relational definition of sin:

Other Christian scholars understand sin to be fundamentally relational—a loss of love for the Christian God and an elevation of self-love…

Hesychasts built on the relational definition of sin but delved to an unprecedented depth into the effects of the loss of love of God. In this sense, their profound understanding of the intricacies of the human soul, and the difference between healthy and unhealthy spiritual states, predates psychology and the steps to mental health that behavioral psychology espouses.

In step 18, St. Johns talks about insensibility “that is, deadening of the soul and the death of the mind before the death of the body.”

Have you had moments when the horrors shown on TV stir up indignation but do not touch your heart or bring tears to your eyes? Or when you are shocked to realize that at a particular moment, while you know you love your family, your heart is closed, and your feelings are frozen? The Ladder recognizes these moments of spiritual paralysis and their consequences on our salvation:

Insensibility both in the body and in the spirit is a deadened feeling, which from long sickness and negligence lapses into loss of feeling.

The word for insensitivity in the original Greek is anaesthisia—the same root as in “unaesthetic;” – loss of sensation, deadening of the senses.

Αναισθησία και στα σώματα και στις ψυχές είναι απονεκρωμένη αίσθησις, η οποία από χρονία ασθένεια και αμέλεια κατέληξε να αναισθητοποιηθή.

St. John forces us to face the consequences of insensitivity. Occasional insensitivity will become a habit causing “benumbed thought; the birth of presumption; a snare for zeal; the noose of courage; ignorance of compunction; a door to despair; the mother of forgetfulness, which gives birth to loss of the fear of God. And then she becomes the daughter of her own daughter.”

Insensitivity, constant sleepiness or dullness often hides a deeper attempt to escape into fantasy, apathy and sloth so we will have to face and engage with reality. Alertness, on the other hand, gives us a fighting chance to resist evil and withstand misfortune. It gives us clarity of mind and full presence in the moment to discern the glory of God all around us.

A state of alertness, John tells us, “is a quenching of lust, deliverance from fantasies in dreams, a tearful eye, a heart made soft and gentle, thoughts restrained food digested , passions tamed spirits subdued, tongue controlled, idle imaginings banished.”

Without alertness, our life slips through our fingers like a dream, and we are unable to be in the presence of God.

How many times are we absent from our own lives in mental and emotional “sleepiness?” Maybe we are too tired to engage with our family, opting to lay half- asleep in front of the TV with a bottle of beer. Or our minds are so cluttered with lists of chores to be done, worries about our next day’s presentation at a meeting, anger about perceived insults, that we barely take note of the beautiful spring day outside. Our senses and feelings have been so dulled that while we register others’ pains and sufferings and sympathize in our minds, our hearts cannot be engaged no matter how much we try to push our feelings.

Indulging in sleep or, as John calls it, a state of somnolence is “stealing half our life time or more.”

Alertness is focus; sharpness; full presence in the moment; a kind of spiritual transparency that allows God to enter unencumbered.

Fear (step 21) is another thief of souls. St. John, calls it “unmanly… a childish disposition in an old, vainglorious soul.”

Fear of course stems from focusing on what might happen in the future and prevents us from living life in the present. St. John goes further, however, to link fear with pride and vainglory.

If we didn’t think we deserved more than we had, we would not be afraid of loss. If we did not live to gain others’ acceptance and impress them with our wealth, position, looks and other material things, we would not spend our days in fear of rejection, disrespect or humiliation. If we think that we, alone, can battle to save ourselves, fear can grow into despair.

Cowardice is a falling away from faith that comes of expecting the unexpected. Fear is a rehearsing of danger beforehand; or again, fear is a trembling sensation of the heart, alarmed and troubled by unknown misfortunes. Fear is a loss of conviction. A proud soul is a slave of cowardice; it vainly trusts in itself and is afraid of any sound or shadow of creatures.